What to do if your ideal customer doesn’t want to pay for your product

This can be a bit of a tricky situation. And it happens a lot. I'll often have people saying to me, “Steph, I've created this product, I've launched it, and everyone says that they don't want to pay for it or that it's too expensive, that they don't think it's worth the price, any kind of variation of an objection to do with price.”

So today, I'm going to run you through a couple of things that you can question to work out whether the problem is the customer, whether the problem is the product, whether it's the messaging, or something else, so we can diagnose where you're actually going wrong.

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6 things to consider when your audience doesn't want to pay for your product

 

1. Does your target audience have money?

The first thing to consider is, do the people who you're trying to help have money to spend? I have a friend who, in his first business, he was trying to sell to struggling musicians. Now, struggling musicians don't really have money to spend. Needless to say, it didn't really work. If your audience doesn't have money, what I would consider is, how can you help these people as possibly a side project rather than your main business? I know you want to help people who don't have money with your main business. That's cool, but you also need to make money so that you can keep helping people. You can help the people who don't have money with things like free content, scholarships, pro bono work, but your main audience, the main people you're trying to sell to need to have that actual money to spend. Otherwise, you can't stay in business for very long.

 

2. Do you actually solve a problem or deliver a transformation?

The next thing to consider is, do you actually solve a problem or deliver some kind of transformation? Because the most successful products solve a problem or deliver a transformation. And this can be a tiny, little problem. It can be a tiny transformation. It can even be a little transformation in how you make somebody feel. For example, somebody puts on a nice dress, that makes someone feel confident. Just check whether you solve a problem or deliver a transformation, because if you don't do either of those, then people probably aren't going to be willing to part with their money for it.

 

3.  Is the problem you’re solving something people will pay money to solve?

Is the transformation that you're offering, something that people would pay money to have? Is it a big enough or an urgent enough or an important enough problem? That is something you really need to consider. Because if it's a tiny, little problem that it's just like a stone in somebody's shoe, not something that's really impacting their life that much, then they might not pay money to fix it.

 

4. Are the people who you're trying to reach the same people who will pay money to solve the problem?

There might be people out there in the world who will pay money to solve the problem that your product solves, but maybe your marketing isn't getting your business and your product in front of these people. Let me give you a really random example. I'm terrible at styling my hair. I own curling tongs, but every time I try to curl my hair, I end up burning my neck. There are people out there in the world who would definitely pay money for an online course teaching them how to curl their own hair at home. Would I do it? Would I pay money for it? No, I wouldn't. I would rather pay for somebody else to style my hair for me on the very rare occasion that I go to a formal event and need to have styled hair. But there are still people out there that would pay money to solve that problem on their own. Just because I wouldn't pay money for it doesn't mean that there aren't people out there who would pay money for it. It's just a matter of finding those people.

 

5. Do people know that they have a problem?

The people who have that problem that your product solves, are they aware that they actually have a problem? And are they aware that there is a solution for it? It sounds so incredibly obvious. You might be thinking, “Of course, they know they have a problem,” but they don't necessarily know that. A lot of the time, our audiences need educating to understand that they have a problem and that there is a solution for it. Sometimes, they just think, “Well, this is how it is. This is the way of life. There's no actual problem here.” They just think it's normal.

 

6. Does your product messaging communicate the problem, the solution, how your product solves the problem?

A lot of the time I've noticed with people's products, it doesn't do any of that. And then they wonder why nobody's spending money. There you go, six things to consider if you feel like your ideal customer or your audience don't want to pay money for your product. It doesn't always mean that people don't actually want your product, just FYI. It just might be that you don't have the right people, or that you're not communicating it right.

 

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