Allow me to introduce you to Jim and Susan.
Jim and Susan would love to go out for a romantic dinner and see some theater.
But to do that there’s a lot they have to maneuver around.
There are all these roadblocks
And these roadblocks that have nothing to do with the fact that they WANT to go to dinner and see some theater.
They need to find a babysitter. They also need to find a time that coincides with their schedules. What if it rains? Susan just had her hair straightened. (Yikes!)
People may have every intention of going
But intentions aren’t exactly actions. And there are all these excuses NOT TO GO that creep up. So even when people want to attend your event, actually getting them there is another problem.
And telling them about the event another time isn’t necessarily going to help. But what if you focus on removing the roadblocks? Then it’d be more difficult for people to talk themselves out of it.
Give people the tools to talk themselves into it
Focus on what’s happening with the people you want to show up. Think of the possible reasons they may have for not going. Address the roadblock head-on and get it out of the way.
We do this all the time with people we know, don’t we?
Remember the last time you wanted your friend to go out with you? What did you do when they told you why they couldn’t? You offered something to make that reason a non-problem, didn’t you?
Isn’t that a lot more work?
Well, it may seem like that at first. But once you find and list possible roadblocks you can refer to them again and again. Look if your goal is to get more people to attend, you can do one of two things:
1. Continue to spam people about your event and wonder why people don’t show up.
Or…
2. Put in a bit more work on the front end make it easier for people to say YES.
Turn the reasons why they can’t into reasons why they can
Next time you want to send out a reminder about your event, don’t just keep asking people to go. They may already want to, but their brain and life have put up roadblocks that say, ‘NO.’ Knockdown those roadblocks by addressing them directly.
After all, Jim and Susan deserve a night out don’t they?
Action plan:
Make up a list of potential roadblocks that have nothing to do with the event itself. Write up solutions to each of the objections.