Before You Can Motivate, Seek to Understand Your Resume Prospects

Before you try to motivate someone to become a resume client, the first thing to do is spend as much time as possible really understanding who they are and where they're coming from. Your customer doesn't care that you want to motivate them to become a customer. They just want their problem solved. (They simply want a job. Or, if they have a job, they want a new job.)

Speakers and business owners who focus on trying to motivate people often fail. Why? Because wanting to motivate someone is inherently a self-centered desire. "I want to help people find a job," or "I want to build my resume business," or "I want people to buy," are all "I-focused" statements.

Instead, successful resume writers don't start with what they want. They don't start with wanting to motivate jobseekers; they start with what the customer wants.

The Magic Question: What Do You Want?
When it comes to business, what the customer wants is king. If the customer wants something that's different than what you want to provide, you'll have to ask yourself which is more important — the success of your business, or going the path you chose.

The most successful businesses in the world almost all undergo a drastic change and revamping at some point:

• Pixar started out as a company designed to manufacture 3D rendering technology. They lost money until they realized the market was in actually creating the movies themselves.
• IBM was one of the world's largest computer manufacturers for years, until the personal computer revolution. They then realized their customers just didn't want what they had to offer anymore, and had to reform their company into one that did consulting instead.

The same applies to resume writers. People often get into business with one set idea of what they want to provide, without asking questions or understanding where their customers are coming from first.

Deeply Understand ... and Motivation Will Come
If you want to motivate jobseekers, first start by understanding them better than anyone else does. If you can understand your audience better than your competitors, you'll be able to motivate them better than your competitors.

What is the real pain point with your target audience? Why are they willing to spend money on your resume service (instead of doing it themselves)? What is it like to not have a solution to their pain yet?

How do people decide on how much they want to pay? Is it based on price, as is a commodity? Or is it based on how likely they believe you'll be able to solve their problem, as it is in consulting?

Try to understand how your customers decide on a solution and why they haven't picked any of your competitors. Try to understand what they want more than anything else.

When you speak, if customers get the sense that you've really taken the time to understand them, they will respond.