The Power of Pain

Want the all time secret to selling anything? Its all about Pain.

Or Change, as author Pip Coburn puts it in his book, The Change Function: Why Some Technologies Take Off and Others Crash and Burn.

While Coburn's book is centered on the Pain/Change principle, the application is applicable for us all.

Coburn says that many great technological ideas have failed because they failed to anticipate the end users pain threshold. I.e., how much pain is there current situation causing them, versus the pain it will take to adapt to your new technological fix.

If you are trying to sell ANYTHING, first, ask yourself this: What is the pain that my product or service hopes to end or reduce, and is it significantly more painful than any pain that might be produced by the change or purchase that you're trying to sell them? Do you know what the pains are of your customer? How about the pain that a change or adaption to your product or service demands?

See Fast Companies article on Coburn's book here:

http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/105/next-essay.html