Point to the Flaws in Your Product and Your Customers Won’t

How honesty in your marketing can become your biggest asset

This isn’t a new marketing strategy, but it’s one that got lost from the old guard to the new. When we launch a new product we tend to make it look perfect. It slices. It dices. It takes your kids to school.

But no product is perfect. Not even yours.

You know it. I know it. Your customers sure know it. So, why not air those flaws in your marketing message. Tell us what your product won’t do, as you tell us what it will.

Let’s say you’ve got a new stain remover.

Instead of showing us a never-ending stream of stains coming perfectly clean, show us how your green spray removes 104 stains, except crayon. We don’t do crayon. Then show a hand spraying the crayon stain in total failure.

When you advertise your flaws you remove the vengeance from the customer.

The flaw becomes an asset. We think, “of course the green spray can’t remove every stain, but at least it can remove 104.” Instead of thinking, “I’ll bet there are all kinds of stains that won’t work with this goop.”

When you refuse to admit your flaws you become a magnet for critics

Consumers have fine-tuned BS detectors. You can shine a light on your business as much as you’d like, but if you don’t address your flaws, someone will.

You can use humor.

You can be serious.

Show data or tell a great story related to your product’s flaws. Maybe your warehouse had a flood. Instead of trashing your inventory, throw a huge “one of a kind, stain sale.”

Or turn a terrible view into an asset.

In Chicago, the John Hancock building has a huge, X-shaped exoskeleton. There are big, steel Xs, running from top to bottom of the skyscraper (see image below).

The offices along the Xs have a completely-blocked window view. Instead of using this design flaw as a problem, the building charges more money to the offices with a blocked view — turning a flaw into an asset (“look honey, my office is way up there, by the third X”).

You can’t see out, but you get to tell people where you work, from far away.

What’s your flaw?

Can you turn your flaw into an asset?

Will you change a blocked-view into a status symbol, or fly your flaw on a flag to let the world know you’re not perfect (but you’ll do your best in all other areas).

Perform a ‘flaw audit’

You aren’t perfect. Your product isn’t perfect. Admit this earlier than later. Uncover what you’re great at. Find out where your product lacks. Do a flaw audit.

Be ruthless with your work, so the trolls have nothing to troll.

Be ruthless with your work, so you can serve your clients best, without them focusing on the places where you’re less-than-great.

This doesn’t mean you should try to release shoddy work, or products with built-in failures. Nope. You’ve got to deliver the best you can to the people you are meant to serve.

Anything less than your best will harm your business.

A flaw audit will help your business do its best work better, while admitting there are things you don’t do as well. You can take the flaws a step further and recommend your competition if you can’t serve a certain portion of your customers (due to your flaw).

How to air our flaws

• Add them to a headline in your content
• Paste them front-and-center on your website
• Use them in your advertising
• Talk about them during your pitch meetings
• Add them to FAQs
• Don’t hide them in the fine print

I recently did this with a small course I offer. The entire course is a PDF document. Instead of making the course documents sound bigger than they are, I list the page-count and address the reader’s concerns right in the FAQ documents.

Result: I have yet to see one refund request.

We’re not perfect. Your clients expect greatness, but not perfection. We want the solution we purchased from you, but we don’t expect you to be perfect in all areas.

Unless you lie to us.

Then we’ll bury you.

…and that doesn’t feel good.

If you want to stay connected with your best customers, so you can air your flaws and capitalize on your best parts — you’ve got to build an email list.

If you build your list now, you’ll have a pre-built, rabid audience ready when you launch your next product. This should be a list you own (instead of relying on social media or some other big-business platform). Tap the link below. Enroll in my Tribe 1K indie email masterclass. I’ll show you how to get your first 1,000 subscribers (and your next 1,000) without spending one hot nickel on ads.

We’re waiting for you.

Enroll in my Free Email Masterclass. Get Your First 1,000 Subscribers

August Birch (AKA the Book Mechanic) is both a fiction and non-fiction author from Michigan, USA. As a self-appointed guardian of writers and creators, August teaches indies how to make work that sells and how to sell more of that work once it’s created. When he’s not writing or thinking about writing, August carries a pocket knife and shaves his head with a safety razor.