One of my best-performing lifestyle coaching ads opened with a simple question: “Tired of being tired?”
People instantly knew whether it spoke to them. They were living that problem every day. They didn’t know the solution yet (that they might need coaaching), and honestly, they didn’t care.
Not at that moment.
Alex Hormozi says, “Learn how to talk about the problem your customer has better than anyone if you want them to think of you as a solution.”
Especially when the solution is complex, messy, or hidden behind layers of expertise people don’t have.
Look at how the best companies sell anything difficult. Salesforce doesn’t pitch dashboards. They show you the chaos of missed follow-ups and scattered spreadsheets. Apple doesn't lead with all the feature but appeal to be different. Microsoft leads with tools to consistently do our best...
The best start with the frustration. TV commercials figured this out decades ago: lead with the pain or the desire, not the product.
The problem is the hook🪝
And that's where many of us stumble - founders, coaches, leaders, change-makers.
We fall in love with our solution. We obsess over what we’re building, the craft, the meaning, the future we see so clearly… and forget that people can only follow us if we answer the most human question in the world:
What’s in it for me?
In change management, this is often the breaking point. Leaders announce a new initiative and assume everyone will be on board because it “makes sense.” But people don’t chase logic. They chase relief from pain, or movement toward something better. They chase meaning. They chase improvement in their daily life.
If you want teams to embrace a new system, a new culture, a new workflow, or AI - you must speak to the very specific pain it removes or the gain it unlocks.
Same in negotiation and communication. Lead with what matters to them, not what excites/frustrates YOU. What will they get from this? Why now? Why this?
As a coach, I spend most of my time uncovering the real job clients want done before suggesting any path forward. Sometimes what looks like a “nutrition problem” is actually an energy problem, or a confidence problem, or a clarity problem. If I don’t understand the pain or the desire correctly, I will offer the wrong solution, that my clients will resist - no matter how good it is.
I ask myself the same questions in my own work. What is the life I want to help people build? What pain does my work remove? What desire does it unlock? Who am I trying to make better?
And when I’m unsettled and reaching for food as a distraction, I pause long enough to ask:
“What’s the pain here? And what’s the real solution, not the distracting one?”
So over to you, dear reader,
Do you understand the pains and desires that drive you, your customer, your team, your mission?
And is the solution you’re working so hard on actually the best path to get there, or just the one you fell in love with?
