What happens when it becomes obvious that the product you’re selling is not perceived by your prospect as meeting a core business need? Don’t sell your product to them. That’s right. Remember, you’re dealing with the emotional human mind. People prioritize their business challenges-and products, services and categories associated with them-in their minds.

Center-of-the-plate issues keep your audience up at night.
We’re talking business critical concerns: in human resources, it’s healthcare costs. For an owner of a trucking company, it’s fuel costs and driver retention. But what if your offering is not perceived as an answer to a core issue? Keeping with the dining metaphor, you’re selling the side dish. Not that your product or service isn’t relevant or remarkably unique, it just requires a different communication strategy. Unfortunately, the harder you push a side dish product directly to an audience whose mind is focused elsewhere, the less likely they’ll listen. At Introworks, we’ve worked with many companies with this communication challenge and have gotten awfully good at solving it. Here are a few ways to do it:

1. Find common ground. Think bigger message. Make the association by linking your product with the context of a larger topic. Talk trends. Do what it takes to be included in a list with the center.
2. Find something else to sell. Can’t find a believable connection between what you sell and the center? Do an end around. Lead with the center and back fill with the side dish.
3. Change the perceptions by changing the game. Become a solutions provider. Arm your customers with center-of-the-plate information. Entice them to your Web site with a white paper that’s central to their pain. Suddenly, you’re the company helping your customer meet its needs.
4. Find the person with the pain. Okay, forget the corner office. Seek out the people in the organization likely to champion your offering. They’ll fight for you. Put them in the center of your bull’s eye and give them the tools necessary to elevate your perception internally.
5. Find a channel partner. Find companies that sell to the center. Piggyback. Bundle. Get a referral. Sign a distribution agreement. Let them make a valid recommendation for your product. They have the ear and trust of your audience.

Bottom line: know where your brand and product fit in your audience’s mind and if it’s not “perceptually” of central importance than take other approaches to get there.