Do Ninety Percent of Your Prospect's Thinking

At the top of the funnel, at the start of a buyer's journey, your prospect is never going to meet you halfway on time, attention or emotional investment. They'll stay as far back as they can, and they'll be skeptical.

So it's your job to do 100% of your own thinking and feeling about what you're selling and talking about, and also 90% of the prospect's thinking and feeling for them before you show up in their life. By the time you arrive, they only have to do the last 10%.

Whatever you want them to feel, whatever you think they'll arrive already feeling, whatever they'll already be thinking, you need to know all of it, and convey, preempt or prevent as efficiently as you can.

Preempting and preventing are different. Preempting an objection means knowing what they'll say that's negative and getting in front of it. Preventing means knowing that if you say it a certain way, or don't do a certain thing, or don't convey a certain feeling, they won't think or feel something in the first place. If your web page or brochure looks cheap, you haven't prevented anything.

So build the guardrails, so they stay on a certain path through your messaging. Ideally it won't occur to them to ask about X, doubt Y or fight back on Z. It will eventually. Just not at the start.