Manipulation never produced lasting conviction. But a customer guided through five clear stages will arrive at yes on their own.
A messaging framework by Billy Broas.
Every customer is standing somewhere before they find you. They have a problem they live with daily, and a way of describing it that is theirs alone.
The first Lightbulb turns on when they feel understood. Not sold to, not educated. Understood. Get this right, and they'll listen to everything that follows.
They've already tried to solve this. They've read the books, hired the person, bought the tool. Some of it helped. Most of it didn't. At least not fully.
The second Lightbulb turns on when you name those attempts with honesty. Your customer already knows what hasn't worked. When you say it plainly, their trust deepens.
This is not your product. This is the idea behind it. The reason your solution works where others fell short.
The third Lightbulb turns on when the customer thinks, "That makes sense. That's the right way to solve this." Conviction in the approach must come before interest in the offer.
Only after the first three Lightbulbs are on does the offer land the way it should.
Your offer is more than your product. It's the full picture of what someone gets when they buy. Present it too early and it feels like a pitch. Present it here, and it feels like the obvious next step.
Your customer needs to see the destination. Not what your product does, but what their life looks like after.
The fifth Lightbulb turns on when they stop weighing the decision and start wanting the outcome. Without this, you may earn their trust but never their action.
I created the Five Lightbulbs after years of helping businesses figure out what to say in their marketing, and in what order to say it.
Before marketing, I was a scientist and engineer. That background taught me to think in structures, not slogans. The Five Lightbulbs is the structure I kept finding underneath every piece of marketing that actually worked.
I wrote a book about it called Simple Marketing for Smart People, and I work with businesses one-on-one to apply the framework to their messaging.
The ideas behind the Five Lightbulbs are explored in full in Simple Marketing for Smart People, the book that started it all.
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