STP 142 Clarity on Problem
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[00:00:01] Hey, I want to talk to the therapist who loves helping people, but they're starting to feel a little stretched thin with all the demands that are put on them from their schedule. If you wanna try to create a product that will help you break you free from your calendar and create some more income, influence, and independence, and I have a program that's starting up in January.
[00:00:25] It's an online cohort of therapists who are working towards developing products that will increase their freedom and reduce the demands of maxing out their calendar. That sounds like something you're interested in. Go to course creation studio.com/step group that's forward slash step group to find out more information and what the, some of the details.
[00:00:52] And for the month of December, you can get the 12 month cohort for the price of the six month [00:01:00] cohort. So just mention that when we have our discovery call and you'll be, you'll get, half price.
[00:01:06] I'm looking forward to helping you put your mission in motion.
[00:01:16] James Marland: People don't necessarily wanna go through therapy. They don't wanna go through the workshops, but they want the result. They want the life that's on the other side of your solution. They want more margin, more time back, less emotional overload, more freedom, better relationships. And your job is to understand what that is first.
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[00:01:40] James Marland: Welcome back to the Scaling Therapist Podcast. I'm your host, James Marland. This week we're doing, uh, episode number two on the three pillars of scalable income. The three Im, the three pillars are clarity, connection, and confidence. And this is our second episode on Clarity. [00:02:00] Today we're going to be talking about creating some clarity around what you say to your people that attract them.
The Restaurant Analogy: Understanding Client Needs
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[00:02:09] James Marland: For example, when was the last time you went out to dinner? Now, where did you go? Why did you go there? Did you just go to a place that said, we serve food, or did you go for something that was more specific? Did you go to Italian? Did you want a steak? A nice steak and potato with some, uh, vegetables? Did you go for something cheap?
[00:02:37] You know, something cheap and easy, like a fast food restaurant, maybe an Italian restaurant where they dim the lights. Maybe you went to one of my favorite places, a diner with nice breakfast. Whatever it is. I'm guessing that you didn't just go to a restaurant and said, oh, they, they serve food. They serve food.
[00:02:56] I wanna go there. You went there for, to satisfy your [00:03:00] hunger, but there was a deeper desire. Why did you choose one place over the other? It's that problem that draws people to choose. One item over another. Now restaurants, they solve the hunger problem. They solve the food problem. But there's also that deeper need that maybe it's taste or delight or convenience or just, oh, we wanna try something new.
[00:03:25] That is the problem that, that normally, that's why people choose something. It's that deeper, not the stated problem, like, I'm hungry, but another desire. Most marketing messages though start with the solution or the product, and that's the wrong way to start. They offer food, but they don't connect with the deeper problem.
The Classic Marketing Mistake: Starting with Solutions
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[00:03:46] James Marland: Clients actually want solved. When you get a clear grasp of the real problem that your clients wanna solve, you connect. You just connect deeper, quicker, easier, your [00:04:00] words. They have a deeper meaning. They last longer. You feel less pushy because they, they actually want what you have. the last episode, we talked about people who you love working with.
[00:04:13] You are the key ingredient, and that leads you to who your people are when you love working with them. This work leaves you energized, not empty. And because they just, they get you, you get them, they get you. It fits with who you are. It fits with your story. It fits with what they offer. It fits with what your strengths finding, getting clarity on who your people are.
[00:04:37] That's step one. Once we figure out who your people are, we need to go to the next level of clarity, which today that's, we're gonna talk about the problem. What are the problems that they want solved that you can solve, that you can solve? Now I'm gonna tell you a secret. I guess it's, it's not a big secret, but it's a secret.
[00:04:57] When I first started trying to help [00:05:00] therapists create income flow, I made a mistake, a classic mistake. I started with a solution like. I saw that therapists were highly educated and that their content could be turned into courses that people would want to buy. So I said, I'll be the course guy. I'll help people build online courses.
My Course Creation Mistake: Missing the Real Problem
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[00:05:21] James Marland: So I went. I went and talked to my therapist friends and some people I met at conferences and people who were, showed some interest or excitement on the idea. And I asked them, what problems do you have with making a course? And most of them said, well. I haven't really thought about making a course, so I don't have any problems.
[00:05:41] So then I, I made another mistake and I pushed and I said well, if you were gonna make a course, what problems do you think you have? You would have? And they were, they were, they think about it and they actually put work and effort into it. And they said, well, I'd probably have problems with networks and computers and what program to buy and where to [00:06:00] host it.
[00:06:00] And those are all real problems. But they were like polite answers. They weren't the, you know, it was like, you know, I'm hungry. The restaurant issue, I'm hungry, but I don't really have this type of problem. I don't want what you have. They were polite and. You know, I came away with all sorts of great data.
[00:06:20] You know, all people have trouble with tech and time and platforms and how to make videos. I wrote it down. I created some curriculum. I built workshops and content around those answers, and they are still very valid. But the, when you look at it and I would present, here's my solution, people would be like, oh, that's nice that, that's, that sounds really great.
[00:06:44] James that you've made these things. They love the idea, but they didn't buy the proof was, you know, they didn't really want that solution. They were just being polite. I was trying to solve the course problems. [00:07:00] They were actually interested in their life problems. You know, Many therapists and I talk to them, you know, reg on a regular basis.
[00:07:08] Deal with the problem of energy and compassion, fatigue and burnout. And, you know, they wanna help people and they wanna help more people. They don't wanna stop what they're doing, but it's just endless. Session after session. And their real problems aren't like, oh, I wanna buy a course.
[00:07:24] The real problems are, oh, I'm just so. Just so tired all the time. I'm drowning in clients, but I still feel behind. I can never get ahead. And I feel like I, I always have to do more and I'm scared that I'm running out of energy for myself and for my family, and like, I don't, I don't think I can do this for 10 more years.
[00:07:47] They're not thinking, oh, I need a course. You know, they're not, that's not the problem. They want solved. They want their life problem solved, that they're, they're thinking, I think I just need my life back.
People Want Their Life Problems Solved
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[00:07:59] James Marland: [00:08:00] And so I made that classic mistake of presenting a solution and asking people for a problem they didn't really need solved. So. Take my advice, take it from me. You know, people want their problem solved and they want it solved by their friends, but you need clarity on what the real problem is, not just what your product is or what you offer, because people love to buy, but they hate being sold to.
[00:08:29] If I was just presenting my core solution, that's me trying to sell the course. So what is the solution that they want? Well, I go, I go back to this story when I was buying a car. I typically pick out cars that will just run forever. They might not look the best, but they're not gonna gimme any problems.
The Car Dealership Story: When Selling Goes Wrong
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[00:08:48] James Marland: They're not gonna leave me stranded like a Honda or a Toyota. I just buy a well-maintained used car. The current car I drive is a blue Honda CR-V 2009, close [00:09:00] to 200,000 miles on it. And it's been a, it's been a champ. But before we bought this car, we went looking for other cars. And I remember going to several different car uh, dealerships, and one in particular stays in my mind because we rolled up.
[00:09:20] We saw that they would, might have some of the type of cars that they were advertising cars that seemed to be in our price range. So we went in, talked with the sales person, filled out some paperwork even before they showed us any cars, it was probably like 30, 40 minutes. We told 'em our price range and we told 'em what we were looking for, and this salesperson brought out a car that was double, I'm literally, I'm not lying.
[00:09:45] It was double the price. Of what we said we could afford, not just a few hundred dollars or not like it, it was double. I was shocked and we just [00:10:00] left, you know, we, where I'm like, well, this is not the experience I want because I'm not, I don't wanna go back and forth. I'm not going to be sold to. And we just walked right out. We walked right out of there they were in it for them. They were in it to sell to us, not serve us. So you've probably heard some version of this. You know, people love to buy, but they hate being sold to. I think that's especially true for the helpers and the therapists.
[00:10:30] Your ideal client, they don't want to be sold to, and you, you probably think selling is hickey, but your ideal client doesn't wanna just be somebody in a funnel. they wake up feeling with their real life problems. Guilt, fear, anger, worry whatever it is. They want to feel that whoever is offering them a solution is this is going to help me. I, I didn't start there. You know, going back to my thing, I started with my solution. I didn't start with the [00:11:00] problem. I talked a lot about the solution, about, you know, the features. Like you get this mu this much, uh, these many templates and this much video.
The Drill vs. The Hole: What Clients Really Want
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[00:11:09] James Marland: This, uh, this amount of live coaching people don't necessarily care about that until they're convinced that you can help them. And that's the classic problem. Uh, people don't wanna drill. They want a hole. You know what when I was, uh, remodeling the basement with the help of my friends, you had to secure some of the boards to the concrete and drill holes in it.
[00:11:33] Well, you needed a special bit. To drill through the wood and into the concrete to secure it. Well, I didn't, I didn't want the drill bit. I wanted the hole. I wanted the hole so I could put the whatever fastener is in it, courses, workshops, groups, digital products. Even your therapy. That's all. That's drills.
[00:11:56] People don't necessarily wanna go through therapy. They don't wanna go [00:12:00] through the workshops, but they want the result. They want the life that's on the other side of your solution. They want more margin, more time back, less emotional overload, more freedom, better relationships. And your job is to understand what that is first.
[00:12:17] And once you know. The hole that they want, the thing that they want, really, that you can provide, you can choose the right solution for that. So how do we get there? How do we get that clarity without feeling what things I hate, like salesy or awkward? So I'm gonna give you three simple ways to, um, create some clarity or for, for the product or for the problem.
Three Methods to Create Clarity
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[00:12:42] James Marland: there, there's a lot more to this than that, than what I'm gonna say here. So don't just be like, oh, I, I listen to a podcast. Now I can know how to do this, but I wanted to just give you three things that you can start doing now and, and build into your reper repertoire. One. This is like, the first method is just to talk [00:13:00] to your ideal client, talk to people about their needs.
Method 1: Talk to Your Ideal Client Using The Mom Test
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[00:13:03] James Marland: Don't just stop here though, because this is a trap, because if you do what I did. And said, Hey, do you have problems with courses? And then people are polite. You're gonna end up with bad data because people don't want to da. You know, you're bringing them like, do you like this? Do you like this? And they don't want, they don't wanna be polite and they don't wanna dash your feelings.
[00:13:25] They're gonna tell you nice things. So that they don't hurt your feelings. So doing customer research is sometimes like asking your mom, do you like what I'm doing? Mom? And your mom will be like, oh yes sweetie, that's great. Tell me more about it. Oh, that's great. Your mom might lie to you to save your feelings, and that's what customers do.
[00:13:44] So enter the book, the Mom Test. It's one of my favorite books on marketing and x asking questions. The promise of this book is that getting great customer data with questions, even your mom could not lie to you about. You ask better questions, [00:14:00] you get better data. Better data means better decisions.
[00:14:03] And it really changed how I asked questions about these ideas for products. For example, most of us ask questions like this, do you like my idea? You know, do you like my course idea? Would you buy a course on this? People who care about you are just gonna try to be nice. Or if they don't really care about you and they want to get you out of the office, they will say, they'll give you faint praise, tru, but not truth.
[00:14:27] We don't need praise. You know when you're trying to create a product, you don't need praise. You actually crave honesty. The good news about talking to people and asking questions is, you know, you're a therapist, you're trained in this, you already know how to do this. You already know how to ask good questions for a living.
[00:14:47] You just have to ask them a d in a different way. Think of these conversations as just an information gathering session and like, uh, an intake an intake call, not a sales pitch. You're not trying to convince them [00:15:00] they have a problem. You're trying to get the information from them. You're talking about the history of the problem.
[00:15:07] You, you stop talking about your ideas. In fact, the Monte says, if you mention your idea, you might already pollute the conversation. So how do you do that? You start talking about their life. For example, instead of saying, would you buy a course on therapy burnout, you try questions like, have you ever felt close to burnout in your practice?
[00:15:28] Or when, what was the last book you read about burnout, or what was the last video you did? Do you know anybody who struggles with the problem on burnout? What have you tried to fix this problem? What's frustrating or missing about those solutions that you've read? Do you see the, the difference?
[00:15:47] You're not talking about your product, you're talking about them. You're talking about real experiences, not future guesses. You ask about their actions, not what they think about it or what they think they would do, but what have they really [00:16:00] done? And this uncovers how big of a problem it is, what they've done to solve it, what they've already spent on it or maybe it's just an itch, not a.
[00:16:09] My friend Joey calls it a shark bite problem. There's mosquito bites that are irritating and there's shark bite problems that you need a doctor for. Is this a mosquito bite or a shark bite? And you just listen. You listen for the emotions, not, not for praise or what sounds good when somebody says to me, I'm tired of feeling like my life belongs to my calendar.
[00:16:32] That's gold to me, that's treasure. Like that is somebody who is in line with my ideal client trying to free people from being chained to the schedule. So that's a clue and it lights the path to the problem you can solve when you're gathering this information. You didn't pitch anything. You just got curious.
Method 2: Map the Before, During, and After Journey
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[00:16:51] James Marland: So step one is getting clear on the real problem. Step two is just draw a map. Ma [00:17:00] there before, during, and after story. Imagine you are a storyteller. Your client is on the journey, you are the guide. this makes the client the hero of their story There's a simple map that you can do without doing the whole hero journey.
[00:17:21] It's just before, during, and after. Remember, your client is the hero, so the more you understand about the client, that will lead you to their problems. So before you ask questions like, what does their life look like now? What feels heavy or painful? What do they believe about the future? What keeps them up at night?
[00:17:44] What do they spend their money on? During your solution, you start asking questions like, what are they learning and trying? Well, they work with you. What small wins or milestones are they achieving? How does their life start to feel [00:18:00] different? And then after it's, it's, uh, the oasis, the after the, after they go from crisis to oasis.
[00:18:07] What does their day look like now? What does a better day look like? What has been removed or simplified? How do they feel now? And you can just, if you like writing or talking into chat, GPT or something, you can just talk about this and have the ai summarize what you say. You can just say, right now my ideal person has the problem of, and just talk, this is, and talk about their day in their life.
[00:18:38] When we work together, they are, and then start talking about what they're working through and then afterward, this is their life. Afterward they are, so the before section helps you identify the real problems that they're doing. The after section shapes the direction or the promise of your offer.
[00:18:57] And the during section is more of [00:19:00] like your process. The solution the during section is the bridge that bridges the crisis to the oasis. When you see it on paper or you type, uh, speak it into AI and have it reframe your thoughts and get it outta your head and onto paper, you're gonna notice some patterns and you're gonna notice.
[00:19:19] What problem you're really solving you, you know, I'm not really solving this need, I'm actually solving for this need. That combined with talking with people is gonna save you months and months of building the wrong thing.
Method 3: Listen to Questions People Are Already Asking
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[00:19:34] James Marland: The third method is to listen to real questions that're already asking, and you're saying, James, well, how do I do that? we live in a wonderful age where there's this thing called Google, and Google has predictive text because they are trying to get you the answers, the quickest possible.
[00:19:54] And people are already shouting their problems into the internet. They open Google and say, how do I solve [00:20:00] this? What do I do about this? And Google tries to predict what they are trying to say. type in your main problem and see what prediction comes up. Now, three, four years ago, I I would, uh, you know, write down the top 10 and do some research and dig a little bit.
[00:20:20] But now there are web services that will do this for you, that will show you second and third level questions out of your topic. And the two I like to use are answer the public and also asked, I believe they're both.com, answer the public and also asked.com. So we'll put that in the show notes, but those two things will show you, you put your topic in and it'll, it'll give you a, a database, a spreadsheet of questions, and also some graphs of what people ask and how they're asking.
[00:20:49] And these are great things to see if there's a lot of questions asked about this. It's a great way to see how you can niche down into your specific [00:21:00] solution. You could also search Reddit. Reddit has, like, how do you do these things and Facebook groups, and also, you know, if you have like notes or things to dm, you can just search for your problem inside your, your own notes, your own email, your own Google Docs and see what comes up.
[00:21:19] See what you've already done. So you could, for me, I could type in therapist burnout or private practice, second income, or never enough time. So you look for these repeating questions. Look for their emotions. Look for the emotions that key into your idea, the problems you can solve and overlap.
[00:21:40] Look for the overlap. So when you combine these things, the mom test conversations where you're talking to real people. The map of before, during, after, and then the real questions that people are asking on the internet. The predictive text, you stop guessing, this is, you're getting clear about what you're doing and you [00:22:00] start seeing the problems that people want to be solved.
How Clarity Changed My Message
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[00:22:04] James Marland: The clarity you get is going to change your behavior at the beginning of my journey. I talked a lot about the solution. I talked about courses, how to set them up, how to record them, how you can create passive income from them, the webpage you need, the email systems, people like the idea, but they weren't ready for that conversations in their mind.
[00:22:26] Uh, and I've, I've actually been told, well, I don't wanna build a course. The problems they want to be solved, as I have discovered over the last three years, is I need margin. I need my time back. I need to give time to my family. I need to feel more human. I can't, you know, I can't keep working for, uh, this many hours and still feel like I am helping anyone.
[00:22:53] I've changed my message. I've changed my behavior hopefully connecting with more my ideal client saying instead of like, let's build a [00:23:00] course to, let's build some income flow. Let's free up some of your time. Let's make something that doesn't depend on you to be in the chair every waking moment.
[00:23:13] The things I use and the education I've gained and the courses I've taken, that hasn't changed too much. I, I mean, I still use courses. I still use con content training, webinars and programs, email webpages. I still all use those things, but I am, I'm tying it to the clear message, the real problems that people care about, and that's, that's the power of clarity over the problem.
[00:23:36] You stop feeling like it's all this extra work. They start seeing that there is a way out and there's hope because you understand the problem that they care about. Your marketing stops sounding like noise or trying to sell people. It acts, it actually starts sounding like relief, like value, like, I can get out of this [00:24:00] problem.
Action Steps You Can Take This Week
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[00:24:01] James Marland: So if you're like me and you thought, and you're like, oh, I don't wanna sell, and I have all the, I. I have this solution, but nobody's listening to me. Nobody's buying it. Could be because you're not clear about the problem you're solving. So here's some simple steps you can take this week. to, to just start getting clarity on this.
[00:24:21] Pick a person that you feel called to serve. Not everyone just. A, a, an individual person and talk to two or three people with that type of description. You can use your skills and also some of the principles from the the mom test ask them about their life and they've, have they struggled with this problem and you fill in the bank with blank with the problem that you believe you think you can solve.
[00:24:51] Ask them what have they already tried? Ask them what frustrations are missing about what they've already tried, and then sit down and drop [00:25:00] the map. It, it's not gonna be perfect, but done is better than perfect and you're gonna learn that this you iterate. The more you know, the more you can fill in the blanks.
[00:25:11] But write down my, before my person is, and during my solution, the person is and after. Person is don't make it perfect. Just be honest. So look for one problem that shows up again and again. This could be the problem that's worth building around a clear draft. A clear direction is better than a perfect idea that never gets done or never gets implemented.
Closing: Moving from Selling to Helping
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[00:25:41] James Marland: So in closing, clarity about your people with step one. Clarity about the real problem is step two, and this is how you move from, I have, I'm selling to, I'm helping people. I am offering value. Imagine a year from now you're still helping people, [00:26:00] but you're not owned by your calendar and that you've replaced some of those hours that sap you with income flows.
[00:26:09] That even on days when you don't see clients, you're still bringing in an income and that you have energy for the people you love and energy for yourself. It's, it starts with, uh, creating something that solves a real problem for the people you love to serve. I know you can do it. So in the next episode, we're gonna talk about the product and the price.
[00:26:34] So we've gotten clarity on the people. Which starts with you. We've talked about the problem, and now we're gonna talk about the product and price. And if, if you hate selling like I do, we're gonna look at how to design these offers that feel like service, not pressure. Hey, and finally, if you want clarity on a product that you can make and you have some ideas.
[00:26:58] Join me for the free [00:27:00] webinar December 11th at 11:00 AM That's Eastern Standard Time and I call it Beyond Fully Booked. The link will be in the show notes. Thanks so much for listening to the Scaling Therapist Podcast. serving you and helping you create some margin in your life is just a great joy for me, and I love hearing the stories about people who are taking what they know and turning it into income flow.
[00:27:25] I will see you in the next episode.
