C O M P E L L I N G N E E D N A R R A R T I V E
C A T I E H A R R I S . C O M
Catie Harris
A Compelling Need Narrative is a statement from customers about what
they really want. The compelling need narrative is the most important
element of starting any business and should be what new and hopeful
entrepreneurs focus the bulk of their energy on creating.
Your compelling need narrative is the essence of everything your
business is built upon. It is the frustrations of your customers, a sum of
the solutions they have tried and the benefits they desire to achieve with
your product or service.
The compelling need narrative is your company’s empathetic statement
that allows your customers to appreciate that you understand them.
And by extension, when you understand what someone wants, you are
in position to offer them a solution. The compelling need narrative is also
your marketing strategy.
Once you have articulated a clear and compelling message to market,
you can use the compelling need narrative to filter all marketing
collateral in your business.
For instance, if you want to know if a particular campaign will resonate
with your audience, run it through the compelling need narrative to see if
it fits with your message to market. Finally the compelling need narrative
is your strategy to stay consistent and on message. By staying on
message, you can provide more value and spend less time “selling”.
The empathy your company exudes with its compelling need narrative
makes your message more human and relatable. Your audience will be
much more likely to engage with you.
Sounds great right? But what is involved in crafting the compelling need
narrative and what does it include?
Craft the Narrative
The narrative itself comes directly from your audience and it involves
immersing yourself in the experience of their lives. As an immersion
technique, you need to interview up to 10 people who are your target
audience. But it’s not just a conversation you are having, you need to
employ a specific structure to the conversation that will get you to the
heart of the matter very quickly.
The Framework
The compelling need narrative uses a framework that I created to provide
structure to a conversation. I call this framework: The Fire Formula. The
FIRE Formula provides structure so that any conversation moves very
quickly to the point and what you need to know.
The compelling need narrative became a way for me to understand how to
make people’s lives better, how to prioritize their frustrations and to
communicate empathy for their issues. How is the compelling need
narrative structured with the FIRE Formula?
The Fire Formula
The FIRE Formula is a 4-part process that focuses on not only getting the
most compelling information out of your target audience but also works to
motivate your audience to seek for a solution to their problems. This
formula can be used in conversation or built into a survey template.
Conversations using this formula can also easily be recorded for use as
compelling testimonials on their own or condensed and combined into a
sizzle reel.
The 4 parts of the FIRE Formula are: Frustration, Interview, Re-imagine,
Eternal whys.
Frustration
The first part of the formula is uncovering the frustrations of your audience.
You will need to get to the root of your audience’s frustrations by asking them
what their biggest challenges and issues are.
Asking questions such as: “What is most frustrating about X?”. Then you
would want to follow it up as in any conversation with questions such as - can
you give me an example, why was it frustrating, how long has it been
frustrating, and how have you tried to solve this problem?
Interview your audience
The second part of the formula is asking them about what the frustration is
important to them. The thought behind this methodology has to do with
understanding how compelling the frustration is. In a hierarchy of frustrations,
where does this particular frustration stand?
This information is best elucidated in asking your target audience: “Why might
you want to [change your situation, fix your problem, do something different]?”
This seemingly simple question forces the person to focus on the first level of
a benefit that could occur if the frustration didn’t exist.
Re-imagine the results
The third part of the formula removes the frustration so audience has a chance
to imagine themselves in a world without it. In this part of the formula you
want to guide the person 2-3 years into the future, where magically the
frustration no longer exists. What is life like at that point?
Listen specifically for the words the person uses to describe what their own
transformation looks like. These are the words that you want to write down
and use in your marketing collateral.
Eternal Whys
Finally, the last part of the formula is asking the eternal whys. Take one of
the benefits that the person spoke of in the third part and ask why it is
important to him/her.
For example:
Benefit - “I want to lose weight.”
Response - “Why is that important to you?”
“Because I want to be healthy.”
Response - “Why?”
“Because I want to do things with my son”.
Response - “Why?”
“Because I don’t want him to grow up and think of me as lazy”
Response - “Why?”
“Because I want him to have a strong work ethic and not struggle through life
trying to make ends meet like I did.”
Sometimes it takes 5-6 whys to get to the heart of the matter.
You might think that the answer gets too personal too quickly and that most
people wouldn’t respond this way.
However, it’s been my experience that just asking why a few times is enough
to uncover some deeply hidden truths about someone. If the person is
staying superficial with you they may not completely trust you with the
information yet. You might want to go back to less threatening conversation.
Also try to avoid asking the eternal toddler-whys into utter nonsense. When
you hit a nerve or a seemingly good point then stop.
Putting It Altogether
So what is the purpose of all of this again?
Well, the compelling need narrative is very powerful because it taps into the
essence of the frustration that someone has.
If you were selling gym memberships, think how much more powerful your
marketing would be when you hone in a father-son relationship as a
motivator to get your audience to the gym, as opposed to people sweating
on treadmills (not appealing by the way).
Here is an example framework that will help you put the information into
paragraph form:
Frustration
[The biggest frustration] that [audience] has is a continuous challenge. The
main problem that they face is [compelling need that needs to be solved].
Interview
The way the [audience] attempts to solve the problem is [how do they solve
the problem now], but this is not optimal because it leads to [what
outcome]. The [audience] could try [substitute option], but [what is the most
common problem with each substitute].
Re-Imagine
If [audience] could [achieve a certain goal] that would lead to [positive
outcome], and their lives would clearly be improved.
Eternal Whys
Because [insert benefits].
P.S. To take your compelling need narrative even one step further, you
can use the FIRE formula to structured testimonials from your customers
and build them into sizzle reels to use in your marketing. After all nothing
sells better than the words and actions of others who have experienced a
transformation using your product or service.