Last post I made the relatively bold statement that “giving value” isn't enough to get your potential clients to buy from you.

That's because, on its own, “giving value” doesn't hit all the key hot buttons needed for someone to be ready to buy.

What are those hot buttons?

I'm sure they're different for different people. And different for different situations. And different for different products.

But in my experience, there's a lot of commonality.

So let's play 80:20 and focus on the key things that almost always need to be in place before someone will be ready to buy.

• Firstly, they need to have a big (and ideally urgent) problem or goal.
• Next, they need to believe that their problem or goal is actually worth solving (given that it's likely to take time, effort and money to do so).
• They need to believe that solving that problem or achieving that goal is actually possible and achievable for them.
• They need to believe that just doing more of what they're doing today isn't going to solve that problem (otherwise why would they bother buying your course if they can solve it themselves).
• They need to believe that you understand them (so that your course will be a good fit or them) and that you're on their side (so they can trust you and your course to deliver).
• They need to believe that your solution is new and different to anything they've tried before (so it has a chance of working even if they've tried to solve their problems before and failed).
• They need to believe that now is the right time to do this – rather than waiting…and waiting…and waiting.

I'm sure you could think of other ones that are typical for your clients. But from my experience, almost all these factors need to be in play to some degree for someone to be ready to buy an online course. Particularly a high-value one.

And that means that if you want people to buy your online course, you need to make sure these factors are in place. Not just hope they are.

But there's a challenge.

Few of these factors are inherently interesting or valuable to your course buyers in and of themselves.

Try sending out an email that basically says “Hey, I understand you. And I have a new solution for you. And now is the best time for you to do something blah blah blah”.

These are very seller-centric messages.

You have to get them across. But you can't just lead with them because on their own they'll just bore or annoy your course-buying prospects.

You need to be a bit smarter than that.

I'll talk about how in our next post.