Why you struggle to sell your sevices

Over the last few years, I’ve noticed something simple but essential:

People don’t take action until there’s a real, felt problem in front of them.

A present problem they can see, feel, and can no longer ignore. And this is true everywhere, not just in business.

Think about health.

Most people don’t go to the doctor because they want to. They go when something actually hurts, or scares them, or becomes impossible to ignore.

My wife (who’s a psychologist) told me something interesting:

Many people avoid checking a potential problem because they don’t want the added stress of something that isn’t certain yet.

They’d rather delay than deal with anxiety.

And the same exact psychological pattern shows up in business.

People buy when the pain is real, not before

As a service provider, this matters more than most founders realize. A lot of companies build offers filled with “extra things”:

• Extra steps.
• Extra deliverables.
• Extra modules.
• Extra consulting.
• Extra bonuses.

Because it looks valuable.

But when a client has a real problem, they don’t want the full thing. They want the pill that removes the pain now.

If I have a headache right now, I’m willing to pay for one thing:

Make the headache go away.

I’m not ready in that moment to pay for:

• Blood tests.
• Nutrition plans.
• A sleep analysis.
• Long-term lifestyle changes.

These things may be useful later. But right now? I don’t care. I just want the pain gone.

Your clients behave the same way.

Here’s the part most founders miss

People aren’t overwhelmed only by their problems. They’re overwhelmed by problems they don’t have yet.

So when your offer tries to solve everything at once, it stops feeling relevant. It becomes too big, too early, too vague.

What people want is:

Solve the problem I have today. Then help me with the next step when I’m ready.

That’s how someone moves forward. It doesn’t happen through “complete transformations”, but through a sequence of solved problems.

So here’s my advice if you want to win more projects:

1) Start with the real, painful problem your client is facing today. Avoid the future ones, the nice to fix… focus only on the one they feel right now.

2) Make your offer revolve around that problem only. Your messaging, your pitch, your headline, everything.

3) Deliver that result clearly and consistently.

4) Once the problem is solved, introduce the next logical step.

This is how you align what you sell with what people want to buy through messaging.

Because as I said… people act fast when the problem is real. When it’s not, they delay.

So your job is to make sure you’re solving that problem, not the ones that come after.

— Sergiu