How you can make P-A-S less pain-full
Maybe you’ve heard of the P-A-S formula. It’s a ubiquitous (that means it’s friggin’ everywhere) structure that copywriters use to introduce a product or service.
It stands for: Pain – Agitation – Solution.
Every sales page uses it, every email uses it. Heck, every parent trying to get their kid to put their coat on uses it.
It’s simply a way of presenting information.
In marketing copy, this means writing about the pain or problem your customer-to-be is battling. You describe what that struggling looks like, what it feels like, and why it can’t go on, unchecked, forever. (That’s the ‘agitation’ part.) Then you present a solution – the fix that takes the pain away.
It’s a tried-and-true formula for setting up a sale.
Because who says no to pain relieving their pain?
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Here’s an example, taken at random from the web (Marie Forleo’s page as she is a master of online sales):
(PAIN) … you’ve been tricked into believing that non-stop work, overwhelm, and exhaustion are normal. (AGITATION) That sacrificing your well-being to get ahead is simply the “price of success.” I used to believe it, too, and it nearly killed me.
That old way of thinking is not just wrong and backward, it’s dangerous.
(MORE AGITATION) The constant pressure to do it all pushes you farther away from your goals and can destroy your health, creativity, and relationships along the way.
Luckily, it doesn’t have to be that way. After more than 20 years in business serving tens of thousands of students around the world, here’s what I know for sure:
Your dreams matter. Your time is priceless. You can get it done, joyfully.
(SOLUTION) All year I’ve been deep in creation mode for Time Genius, the paradigm-shifting program that world premieres today. This is hands down the most transformative and important training I’ve ever created.
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And here’s what it looks like when you’re a parent trying to get your toddler (or teen for that matter) to wear a winter coat:
ME: It’s below zero today. (PAIN) You’ll freeze to death if you go out in that hoodie.
TODDLER/TEEN: Grr.
ME: Look outside – there’s frost on the lawn. That means it’s below zero. (AGITATION) So not only will you be cold between here and the bus, you’ll be cold all day because this is the kind of cold that sinks into your bones and makes you shiver until you take a hot shower, which you won’t be able to do all day until you get home from school. That hoodie also doesn’t have pockets so your hands will get too numb to hold a pencil and all your writing will take twice as long.
TODDLER/TEEN: Hmph.
ME: (SOLUTION) Put on your damn coat.
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Works like a charm…. Until you’re writing your own sales page and describing your clients’ pain.
Why you might resist using P-A-S
Here’s where heart-centred, empathetic, compassionate entrepreneurs get uncomfortable: writing about and especially agitating those pain points.
It feels like you’re digging down to an uncomfortable level in that agitation stage, picking at every insecurity, every anxiety, every what if scenario that might come about IF YOU DON’T BUY THIS NOW!
Focusing hard on someone’s pain can feel menacing, mean-spirited, even bullying.
Ugh. Who wants to sell anything that way?
And then there are all of us service providers hanging out near the top of Maslow’s pyramid. We’re not relieving pain. We’re not addressing deep-seated suffering, We’re kind of like the icing on the cake, taking good things and making them even better. (I hate to be the one to say it, but you will probably survive life without a copywriter.)
There are a whole lot of service-based business owners who don’t frame their work as relieving pain.
In this case, the P in P-A-S will stand less for pain and more for problem. Which is totally cool. That works in our P-A-S formula. Problems, like mosquito bites, can be frustrating, annoying, irksome and nagging. If you simply can’t move forward until you take care of the itch, then you’ll be ready and open for a solution. (I wrote about triggering that buying impulse here.)
What if you don’t want to imply that your clients need fixing at all?
Here’s another hiccup. Many of my clients are coaches, and it’s kind of in the job description to look forward, explore options, and aspire to new possibilities on behalf of their clients. ‘Wallowing’ in pain and frustration feels inherently wrong.
What the P-A-S formula gets right
What P-A-S understands is the importance of the gap. In order to sell something, you really need to understand the gap between where your customer/client is and where they would like to be; and how your solution (product or service) helps them bridge that gap.
Whether that’s the gap between bleeding out and surviving: “Hand me that tourniquet!”
Or the gap between having an idea but never finding the time to get around to doing anything about it: “Buy my Time Genius course!”
Or the gap between dry mouth and delightful satisfaction: “Got milk?”
That’s still the logic at the core of exchanging goods.
And you can still make the PAS formula work for you – even if you don’t like pain, aren’t relieving pain and your client is perfect just the way they are. #bornthisway
Mind the gap
Think hard about your ideal customer and figure out: Where are they now? Where do they wish they could be?
That’s the very gap you created your product, service, course or presentation to bridge.
The gap might be between a great place and an even better place.
Your client’s crowdsourcing request might be pulling in money. And, maybe your video skills could help them pull in more money. Or pull in money even faster.
In some cases, P-A-S can stand for Possibility – Amplification – Solution.
Maybe your ideal client is fine, and they have a dream. Describe that dream in detail. Instead of “agitating” a problem, you can use copy to “amplify” a possibility. When the possibility seems far, or hard, or complicated, or out of reach – your solution helps bridge the gap.
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For example…
(POSSIBILITY) Imagine having as much fun speaking about your work, as you do your hobbies!
(AMPLIFICATION) When you’re able to converse clearly, passionately and compellingly about what you do, you build interest, curiosity and new sales naturally. You walk into a room ready to dazzle your listeners with a transformational story that makes them choose to act.
(SOLUTION) I created [this program] to make telling your story just that comfortable.
There’s no pressure for your solution to rid the entire world of all evil. Same with your copy. You aren’t required to use dire language to set up a heart-wrenching scenario, just to make your solution sound urgent and necessary.
Your client knows their own heart. They know what they want less of in their life, and what they want more of. They need to see that you understand where they are now, where they’d love to be instead, and that you have a way to help them get there.
From bad to good, or good to better, or an oreo cookie with nothing to dunk it in.
That’s how you get P-A-S to work for you