That's pretty oversimplified but holds true. If you don't know what's bugging your prospects and keeping them up at night, then you won't know what solution your services and products need to offer them.

From a marketing point of view, you have to be very clear about what your customer's problems are in order to "talk" to them. When you think of what you are selling as a solution to your prospects' problems or a way to improve their lives, you are speaking their language. And when you speak their language, they are much more likely to listen, because you are tapping into the conversation that is already going on inside their head!

People want to know you understand them, that you have compassion for their concerns and want to help with your services and products.

Your goal is to create a clear, concise and strong marketing message that resonates with your prospects' wants and needs. Your marketing message needs to clearly show the connection between your services and your prospective clients' needs.

Your target or niche market shares commonalities in the frustrations and issues they face. As a good marketer and business owner, you need to identify these and be able to talk about them in your marketing communications.

Your prospects are walking around with needs and problems and they are looking for solutions. They are not necessarily walking around looking for the product or service you sell. So, when you can position your product or service as a solution to their problem, you immediately get their attention!

To be more accurate, your prospects and clients experience various symptoms or emotions caused by their problems. For example, people come to professional organizers because they feel many of the following symptoms: stress, anxiety, feeling out of control, unhappy, inefficient, feeling bad about self, ineffectual and so on. They may have different problems, i.e. messy office, no workable filing system, cluttered garage, but they all pretty much feel the same and experience the same symptoms.

By tapping into people's underlying issues and the emotions that are created from this problem or need, you can ensure that your marketing materials talk directly to these symptoms and problems.

So how do you figure out what your prospects' and clients' problems are?

* think about when you have been in the same situation and what your main issues and feelings were

* ask current and potential customers what the key issues facing them are

* stay current with any studies, literature and news about your target group and things that are "hot buttons" for them

* periodically check out your competitor's websites and see how are they talking to their customers, what kind of language they are using

* do research on your target market (via websites, magazines, trade shows, online forums) to see what they're talking about amongst themselves You need to stay educated and informed of your prospect's problems; otherwise you won't be able to communicate that you understand their problems. And if you can't do this, then your potential clients will not respond; and as a result they will not buy your products or services.

The principle is very simple: if you can clearly articulate a problem your client has, and you can demonstrate credibly that you can provide a solution to that problem, they will listen to you.

If your marketing message can clearly and compellingly "connect the dots" between the problems your prospects and customers have and the solutions your services and products provide, then you'll have more qualified buyers and more success marketing your small business!