How to Create a B2B Message That Can’t be Ignored

Most B2B companies don’t lose traction because of a weak offer or a substandard product. They lose it when prospective buyers ask, “Why should I buy from you?” and the answer just doesn’t land. The main challenge lies in creating B2B messaging that resonates with prospects, differentiates your brand, and drives conversions. So how can marketing teams develop the right language and clear messaging that leads to revenue growth?

That’s why we’re talking to Michael Liebowitz (Founder, Magnetic Mind Studio), who shares proven strategies and expert insights on how to create a B2B message that can’t be ignored. During our conversation, Michael emphasized the need to align messaging with the “critter brain,” which places value on emotions and survival. He explained why B2B marketers must communicate the main outcome delivered by their service and the core beliefs of their business. He also discussed why effective B2B marketing isn’t just about understanding your customer, but also about understanding one’s own business, brand purpose, and core beliefs. Michael highlighted the biggest messaging pitfalls that B2B marketers should avoid. He also predicted a shift from the attention to a trust economy due to AI, and stressed the need for rapid trust-building in a competitive B2B landscape.

https://youtu.be/JMOPyTEmf_E

Topics discussed in episode:

[1:54] Why effective messaging is critical to B2B marketing success from a behavioral neuroscience perspective

[4:30] Key pitfalls B2B marketers make when crafting messages

[7:51] How to apply behavioral neuroscience in developing persuasive B2B messaging

[9:42] How AI leads to a shift from the attention economy to the trust economy

[12:32] How to build trust through authentic B2B communication

[19:08] Actionable tips for developing impactful B2B messaging

– Find out the operating belief within the business

– Don’t start with ‘Why?’; start with ‘What’s important to you?’

– Highlight the main outcome and the core belief in the messaging

[32:08] An example of how a company increased sales by clarifying their core belief

[35:52] Why you have to understand yourself first to fully understand your customer

Companies and links mentioned:

Transcript

Christian Klepp 00:01

Most B2B companies don’t lose traction because they have a weak offer or a substandard product. They tend to lose it when their prospective buyers ask, Why should I buy from you? And the answer they hear just does not land. So how can B2B companies and their marketing teams develop the right language and messaging that leads to revenue? Welcome to this episode of the B2B Marketers in the Mission podcast, and I’m your host, Christian Klepp. Today I’ll be talking to Michael Liebowitz, who will be answering this question. He’s the founder of Magnetic Mind Studio, who is focused on messaging strategy fueled by behavioral neuroscience and linguistics. Tune in to find out more about what this B2B marketers mission is.

Christian Klepp 00:01

Michael. I mean, we had a dynamite pre interview conversation. I mean, that was already like foreshadowing what was to come. Let’s put it that way.

Michael Liebowitz 00:01

Yeah.

Christian Klepp 00:01

And I’m really looking forward to this discussion, because not only is this near and dear to my heart, but I think it’s also something that’s more importantly, highly relevant to B2B marketers and the companies that they represent. So let’s not keep the audience in suspense for too long, and let’s just jump right in on.

Michael Liebowitz 00:01

Sounds good. Let’s go.

Christian Klepp 00:01

Fantastic. So Michael, you’re on a mission to build communication clarity that aligns teams and supercharges marketing and sales. So for this conversation, let’s focus on the topic of how to create a B2B message that can’t be ignored.

Michael Liebowitz 00:01

Okay.

Christian Klepp 00:01

I’m going to kick off this conversation with two questions, and I’m happy to repeat them, right? So the first one is, why do you think it’s so important to develop the right B2B messaging? The second one is, what is it about B2B messaging that you wish more people understood?

Christian Klepp 00:24

All right. Michael Liebowitz, welcome to the show, sir.

Michael Liebowitz 00:47

Thanks. I’m glad to be here.

Michael Liebowitz 01:54

Messaging in general, communication in general. I’ll see if I can find some pieces that are specifically applied to B2B. But my area of expertise is in the realm of behavioral neuroscience and linguistics, and that is shared by all humans, regardless of B2B or anything else. So the best way to create a message that can’t be ignored? Well, most messaging is speaking to the wrong part of the brain. Right? It’s speaking to a part of the brain that has almost, but not entirely, anything to do with whether or not someone’s going to want the service that you’re selling or not. There is another part of the brain that’s operating in the background, and I’m just going to, for sake of learning, we’re going to call it the critter brain. Now this is a metaphor for learning. There is no such thing. You know people say is that the amygdala is like, well, the mingle is part of it, but just, it’s just how the brain operates. And this part of the brain just wants to know if you are safe to be around all it does it. It controls emotions and it controls survival. That’s all it’s concerned with.

Michael Liebowitz 03:02

Here’s the nut, the up shell of that, the nutshell that we feel good when we are with people who are like ourselves. To this part of the brain, I don’t want me to die, therefore people like me probably don’t want me to die either. Makes perfect sense to the Creator brain. So here’s how this relates to messaging. The meta frame on top of all messaging is how do you create like kind with your audience? Which is why I say and let me be clear about this. That means you do audience research. But here’s what most B2B marketing misses to the extent that it should be done as much as the audience clarification is, well, what is this business really all about? What does it stand for on a belief level? So to answer that question, how do you get these messages to really break through and get a yes, you have to communicate on a belief level, not just the level of the service that you provide.

Christian Klepp 04:07

Fantastic, fantastic. And, yeah, and I suppose, like, what are these like when you’re developing that messaging that can’t be ignored? What are some of these? And you’ve probably seen that, all right, what are some of these key pitfalls? Let’s keep it top level, some of these key pitfalls that marketers should avoid, and from a constructive perspective, what should they be doing instead?

Michael Liebowitz 04:30

Okay, the avoid part, hey, you’re going to be able to do all these things, fantastic, and even the surface level benefits, you’re going to be able to know, no more of that. Now it’s freedom for this, no more that. Now you’re got more money for that. Those are useful things to communicate, but you have competition, so your competition is saying the exact same thing. So here’s how you differentiate yourself, is this part of the brain that credit brain really only wants to know two things. Number one, what is the main outcome you deliver? So all those things that you’re saying that you’re going to be able to get from this business, we’re going to do all these things for you. Well, what do they what does your client have when they have that? That’s the main outcome. And the best way I’ve ever heard this described, and many marketers in your audience are going to recognize this quote comes from Theodore Levitt Harvard Business School around 1960s or so, which is, people don’t want a quarter inch drill. What they want is a quarter inch hole.

Michael Liebowitz 05:35

So the big mistake I see a lot of B2B marketing make is they’re talking about the drill. Hey, our stuff, that our platform, our thing, does a lot of this stuff. You need this stuff. It solves this specific problem for you. Great. I’ll put you on the list with the other ones I’m talking to to help solve the problem, right? And then we’ll somehow make a decision. Instead, your audience wants to know, like, Okay, what do I really get from all that, like, on that deeper level? So you have to dig deeper, like, the question, or one of the questions I ask is, kind of tongue in cheek, what did they get when they got what you gave them? Right? So that’s just one thing that the brain wants. This part of the brain wants to know. It gives it context, and it says, okay, but here’s how you make a real connection. And this is so deceptively simple, a little bit harder to surface, but this part of the brain just wants to know, do we share the same beliefs? That’s how it recognizes like kind it just wants to know what you believe to be true about your business or about the context of the business you’re offering, and once the critter brain on the other side of you, the buyer, is able to see clearly what you believe to be true, and as long as it doesn’t violate their criteria for Survival, which is hard to do in this context. You’ve just became a very survivable option. Now they don’t think of this consciously, or at least not not in their foremost awareness. It’s happening way in the background. Is practically automated, right? And so that’s what’s going on. Avoid talking about the surface level benefits. And here’s all the things you’re going to get are useful. I wouldn’t say avoid them. Just put them down below these two. What’s the main outcome and what do you believe to be true?

Christian Klepp 07:34

Yeah, those are definitely interesting points. But I guess my question is, look, why do you think, from your experience, why do you think a lot of B2B marketers go back to stuffing as much information or statistics into their messaging?

Michael Liebowitz 07:50

Because this belief stuff no one’s aware. You need to do it. It kind of comes out of studying behavioral neuroscience. So if you studied marketing, and you’re really good at marketing, and you know how to set up marketing strategy, marketing structures, and all the things, then the consciously aware stuff you’re going to talk about is all that surface level things, because it’s, it’s, it’s in short term memory, it’s in really easy to access sort of information. It takes quite a bit of digging to find the core belief system operating within a business that’s going to resonate with the audience. Now every marketers have the experience of the A/B test and messaging, and one lands, and you’re like, fantastic, let’s move into that one. And sometimes that happens quickly, but more often, it takes a lot of sort of trial. When you move into just talk about your outcomes and beliefs, your A/B testing trials are going to be probably cut in half to maybe a quarter of the attempts, because you’re getting right to the parts of the brain that feel trust. This is how we calculate trust? So, yeah, you can accidentally hit it. Sure. In fact, a good marketer will have the experience to accidentally hit it a lot faster than an inexperienced marketer. But when you know exactly what to look for you, can you hit it every time? All right, yeah.

Christian Klepp 09:19

Yeah, there is that tiny little detail, right? Like you have to, you have to know what you’re doing. Well, at the time of the recording, this is 2025, and I have to ask you this question, also, because you wrote about it on LinkedIn, where does AI fit into this entire equation of developing messaging? And what are your thoughts on that?

Michael Liebowitz 09:42

I’m going to go to a place that’s not tactical, like, how do you integrate AI into marketing? It’s more like this. Here’s what I see the future looking like.

Christian Klepp 09:50

Right.

Michael Liebowitz 09:50

I think we are moving away from the attention economy we’ve perfected that we know how to do that, right? So. I think because of AI and how AI makes it really easy to pull the levers of attention at scale, at a much bigger scale than we’ve ever seen before. And it doesn’t necessarily have to be real now I’m not talking in marketing. I’m just talking about what people are going to experience in their online digital lives with the quality of video and audio mimicry that AI is going to be able to achieve. That it’s going to create an overall sense of, I don’t know what’s real. I don’t know what’s true. Because you’re going to look at something, you’re going to believe it, you’re going to comment on it, and then you’re going to find out, Oh, that was completely made up by AI. We’re already seeing things like that, right? And I think the zone is going to get flooded by bad actors in marketing who are just going to pump out a bunch of stuff, because now they can again at scale. So out of the attention economy, we’re going to move into what I’m going to call the trust economy, because the zone has been flooded by a bunch of dubious information, and everyone’s got is going to get burned by it, 2, 3, 4, 10 times. We’re going to look for islands of trust, right?

Michael Liebowitz 11:17

I think the lever point of the future for all brands, including B2B, is how quickly can you get from first contact to trust? Because ain’t no one going to have the patience to take the journey with you anymore. Now, with B2B, it’s different, because longer sales cycles, it tends to be more of a personal touch, but still, you know it’s going to apply, especially if the top of your funnel for B2B has something to do with an online presence of any kind. Yeah. But if you’re going to networking meetings, and that’s how you’re doing your B2B market your or speaking engagements, a lot less so of this impact of AI with the trust economy.

Christian Klepp 12:09

Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. I mean, we hear it all the time. We see a lot of posts about it on LinkedIn, about how the trust gap is widening.

Michael Liebowitz 12:17

Yep.

Christian Klepp 12:18

It’s not narrowing. It’s widening. And, you know, going back to all those things that you just mentioned. So I guess the question here is really, or the challenge, in fact, for B2B marketers out there is like, how do you build that trust quickly?

Michael Liebowitz 12:32

Yeah, everything cycles back to beliefs, the fastest way to gain trust and the fastest way to authentically, be authentic. Oh my god, we’re going to see so much like faux authenticity out there is going to be insane. Is to just be able to look the prospect in the eye, whether that’s in person or digitally or like whatever the form of communication is, and just say this is what we believe to be true. Because here’s the thing about human beings and how our neurology operates in any human interaction, the person with the strongest belief wins every single time. The example I always use is if the child believes they deserve that piece of candy more than their parent believes they don’t. Guess who’s going to get some candy, and pretty soon, right? Eventually, the belief systems will align on the strongest belief in the room. We’ve all experienced this as well in any group setting where you’re all deciding on where to go to lunch. I guarantee you went to lunch at the place of whoever had the strongest belief in that organization or that gathering of we should go here. It’s part of social dynamics. It’s part of tribe building. It’s part of safety patterning. It’s wired in so when you lead with a message based in your business’s core belief, call it brand. Call it whatever you want, but it’s a belief. You become the strongest belief in the system, and what you’re going to find is, anyone on the other side of that communication, you’re going to come off as more believable, more authentic. We have a tendency to adopt the map of whoever’s expressing the strongest belief in the room. It’s a function of, you know, getting along as with other human beings. And so, you know, we’re, we’re an animal that seeks community with each other and belonging. So this is just one of the mechanisms by which we do it. Okay, marketers, you’re, you’re, you got 150,000 years of a human evolution in there. Use it, right?

Christian Klepp 14:41

Absolutely, man, absolutely. You touched on this previously, but I want to go back to it, like behavioral neuroscience.

Michael Liebowitz 14:50

Yeah.

Christian Klepp 14:50

Like, I know that that’s really like something you focus on in your area of expertise. What role does that have in developing the right B2B messaging?

Michael Liebowitz 15:01

We all okay, every human being follows the same neural pathway to saying yes, and your audience takes in whatever is being communicated. Marketers know this, that everything is a piece of everything is communication, right? So here’s what happens. We take that in the very first thing we do is we’re trying to make that light, kind, identity, belief level, match whichever way that goes, yes or no. And you’ve seen or heard of the study say, hey, turns out decisions are made in a split second. Well, this is this. This is the decision they’re talking about. It’s not the decision to buy or not buy. It’s the decision of, are you survivable or not? And this part of the brain is fully wired up by the time we’re two months old. So by the time you’re in any position to buy something, you’ve gotten really good at this. Right? Whichever way that answer goes, gets kicked upstairs to the other part of the brain, which we’re just going to call the human brain, wraps a story around the emotional content that the critter brain just told it either scary or yay, and then we output into the behavior of, yes, I want to buy that. So what we often think is, what do I have to say over here that will entice someone to buy when in reality. And here’s what the neuroscience says, ah, the real thing is to what do you need to say over here to make the critter brain feel like you’re safe and that you’re like kind the rest of the neurology will take care of itself. That lead to the buy button.

Christian Klepp 16:45

Interesting, yeah, it definitely goes back to like, it’s almost, um, not, not pedestrian, but it’s the very basic, like, fundamentals.

Michael Liebowitz 16:55

Yeah.

Christian Klepp 16:55

Of not even human survival. It’s like, it’s like, almost like the animal instinct, if you will.

Michael Liebowitz 17:00

So technically, we can really organize sections of the brain because our brains were built common like Microsoft does their operating systems. Everything’s backward compatible, right? And the parts that are on operation technically are, let’s these are just metaphors. Is the lizard brain, that’s survival, and the mammalian brain, which is the emotion. So those two things come together to create the critter brain. They work really well together on this sort of like lightning fast, you know, systems thinking that Daniel Kahneman talks about, and then the other parts of the brain are more advanced. It’s the primate brain, and it’s the human brain, and then there’s the or the advanced primate brain, and then there’s the human brain, which is the frontal cortex. All those do a lot of complicated stuff, including social dynamics, language logic, reasoning. We put those in finger quotes. Time is in there. All that stuff is up there, but the control panel is on the other side. Survival. You mean, okay, this top of the brain. The top of the brain, the human brain does, let’s just call it rational thinking. Put that in finger quotes the critter brain does survival thinking. So given the choice of making a survival decision or a rational decision, which one do you think we’re going to default into survival? If you get a rational decision wrong, what happens? Well, you just made the wrong decision. You get that survival decision wrong. Guess what happens?

Christian Klepp 18:40

Oops.

Michael Liebowitz 18:41

Oops. You’re no longer around to make any more decisions, right, right? Yeah, so that’s what we default to every single time.

Christian Klepp 18:49

Absolutely, absolutely, all right. I mean, you’ve given us a lot of stuff here, so why don’t we try to, like, break it down. Like, what is it that B2B marketers need to do to develop that messaging that can’t be ignored. Like, walk us through those steps. What are those components like? Like, think of this like an engine. Well, what needs to be in there?

Michael Liebowitz 19:08

Number one is finding out the operating belief within the business. Here you’re going to be talking to, and this, I’m just going to lay out what my process is. You need the CEO in the room and whoever is, this is my language, whoever is in charge of loving this brand into existence, right? If that’s your COO, that person needs to be in the room. If it’s the CMO, bring them into the room. If it is your HR person, bring them in the room. But if HR is not involved with that, they don’t need to be in the room, right? So you make the call of who’s in the room and the first thing you want to do, and I’ll give people the exact question I use, because here I’m going to maybe get some hate mail, but I think Simon Sinek got it wrong.

Christian Klepp 19:57

Do tell.

Michael Liebowitz 19:58

Start with why. Because, and Simon doesn’t know this, or maybe he does, but he’s on the right path, but he’s a little bit off on the technicality. When you say, What’s your why, when the critter brain, or when people hear why, the critter brain takes over and starts panicking with the word why? Because there’s a lot of perceived judgment on top of that question, and plus, it narrows it down to one. Was there’s one why? Like, why’d you do that? Well, you have to have an answer and better be convincing. It just puts a lot of pressure on the system. And so what happens is it gives a lot of false positives, because you kind of want to look good.

Michael Liebowitz 20:45

The better question to ask to get to the same territory that Simon Sinek was talking about, is, instead of What’s your why it is, what is important to you about and then you fill in the context of their business when you ask someone what’s important to them? Well, there’s lots of things that can be important, right? Pressure is off, and no one judges you by what’s important about it. You can agree or disagree, and no one’s going to judge you harshly, right? So you get a lot of really good quality information, but it gets to the same territory, which is the belief system. I guarantee what you find important about something will reveal your beliefs. And so I listen to everyone, I ask everyone in the room, say, Okay, you and I just met, describe this business to me. Just use your own language, and they describe it, and it’s usually very surface level, and I’m listening for how they use their language, not just what they’re saying. And I’ll find something key in there. I’ll say, Great, what’s important to you about and I’ll find the piece that was really interesting about this.

Michael Liebowitz 21:53

For instance, if I have a client that says B2B and say, like I met with one yesterday, they do, they fix operations in really fast growing startups or found like founder led companies. And one of the words that was used was this frame of optimize was asking like, hey, what do you do? Oh, we optimize X, Y and Z. Now they could have used any word in the English language, but they chose optimize. I’m gonna get curious about how come they use that word. So I say, hey, great. What’s important to you about optimization? How come things need to be optimized? They’re going to tell you a belief, right? So that’s what you do. And then you can dig deeper, like we’re not quite there. And he says, This is where the experience and the sensitivity to where the territory really is. And you can go too far. If you dig all the way down, you’re just going to go to, I get to live, right? So that when you get there, you’ve gone too far, because they all will go there eventually.

Michael Liebowitz 23:01

The next thing you want to know is, what’s the meaning of that? So you find the one belief. There’s going to be many in the system, and you’re going to find the one that is, the one that is the bigger one. Great. So here’s the belief. So now that you are able to have this in your world. What does having that do for you? They’re going to give you the meaning of that belief. Well, guess what? When you share the belief and meaning of your business with the with your audience, the second a part of them agrees with you, that’s the first, most important yes, you’re ever going to get and you’ve already beat out the competition, because even if they offer the exact same service as you do, and your audience can see that there’s a part of them that just goes there’s just something like this company I like, And it’s because you became the most survivable option available to the critter brain, and it’s just squirting out like the chemicals. It’s like your brain is a chemical machine, right? And so those are the first two movements I do. What’s the belief in the system? What is the meaning of that belief in this system?

Michael Liebowitz 24:17

And here’s the thing, this is about the company. This is coming from the company. You can’t source your brand from the outside. This is the company planting their flag. Now, you can absolutely source the outcomes from your customers. What are they looking for? But then you’re going to want to frame it from the viewpoint of the brand, of the belief system, to attract the people that are going to be fantastic, fit clients. Oh, you can do this. A company is going every time you’ve ever had a bad fit client, it’s been because of a mismatch of belief and belonging and things like that. When you’re clear about this stuff, the bad fit clients will never come into your orbit. They will. Self eject because you’re being so clear, and they’ll just disagree with you and say, not for me, right?

Christian Klepp 25:08

Which is not a bad thing.

Michael Liebowitz 25:10

Which is not a bad Oh no. This work takes courage, because I hear like, Oh, aren’t I? Like, narrowing the field? Like, yeah, you kind of are and delivery so, but you’re narrowing it into people who are going to be the most amazing clients you’ve ever had. Yeah, and, and they’re going to stick with you, because this is how loyalty works. Again. Creator brain survival is I already know you’re survivable, and even if someone else has a quote, unquote, better option, better service, or better whatever that is. I don’t know if I can survive them, right? So I’m going to stay here, just why people stay, honestly, with some bad companies, right? Because it’s survivable to the critter brain now it operationalizes as, Oh, what a pain in the ass to move everything over. And it very well may be, but believe me, if that other option had better things for you and the critter brain said they are 100% survivable, you’d be like, how do we get this done?

Christian Klepp 26:16

Yes, right. Let’s move over. Right? Like, let’s do it.

Michael Liebowitz 26:20

The juice is now worth the squeeze. But if it’s just like we do these things, these five things, we do these seven things. Oh, I want those two other things, but there’s no safety level there. You’re going to stick with the five, five things and ask them, Hey, can you incorporate those two other things into your business?

Christian Klepp 26:37

Yeah, yeah. Absolutely, absolutely, okay, my friend, we get to the part in the conversation where we’re talking about actionable tips, and, man, you’ve given us a ton, right?

Michael Liebowitz 26:48

Yeah.

Christian Klepp 26:48

So think of this like a recap question. So if there’s somebody out there, hopefully a B2B marketer, that’s trying to figure all of this out, and there were three to five things that you would advise them to take action on right away when it comes to developing.

Michael Liebowitz 27:02

Yeah.

Christian Klepp 27:03

B2B messaging that can’t be ignored. What are those things?

Michael Liebowitz 27:08

I would just get your client into a room and ask them what’s important to you? Right? It’s just this, the fundamental Keystone block that holds the entire system together. Not only are you going to understand your client more, they’re going to start to understand themselves more. And as a B2B marketer, they are going to fall in love with you beyond just the results you’re able to get. Here’s another action item, if your current messaging is not performing well, ask yourself this question, what identity are we communicating here? Because identities are just beliefs that start with the words I am. So it’s another type of belief. But writing on top of every message is an identity. Like, read the message. And if you can imagine what kind of person is saying this, what picture comes up in your head, like, describe them. They’re the kind of person who is technical. They’re the kind of person who is like, fun, loving, whatever. And if that kind of person doesn’t match the business that you’re trying to market for, that’s why the message isn’t working, or if it’s one of the reasons, right? So because we pick up on those things almost instinctively. Well, here we read a message, and we get it, it’s not conscious, but we get a picture of the kind of person who is saying that, and then we just do a quick hit of, Is this my kind of person or not, right? And so you want to pay attention to those that level of detail. It’s kind of fuzzy. It’s on that emotional level. But we all know that, you know, marketing is an emotional, even B2B is an emotional when people buy on emotions. So that’s another layer. If you’re not doing that, that’s a good exercise to do when things are not working, and if you have a message that is working, do the same thing and deconstruct that identity and try to say, Well, this one works. Okay, let’s do more of that.

Christian Klepp 29:28

Absolutely, absolutely. And you know, a lot of the things that you said resonated with me, because part of what I do also is like, you know, auditing a client’s website, or sometimes checking out their competitors. And every so often, I would say, more often than not, you come across websites where you’re looking at the homepage, or I’m looking at the homepage and I’m scrolling, scrolling, scrolling. I’m like, Okay, back to the top, scrolling, scrolling, scrolling. And I still don’t understand what this company does, right?

Michael Liebowitz 29:58

Like I saw one the other day. I’m like, I still don’t know what you do. I’ve looked at probably three of your pages on your website. I have no idea what you do or what context you even exist in.

Christian Klepp 30:08

Yeah.

Michael Liebowitz 30:10

Yeah, yeah. Well, some of my favorite clients are like that. They’re like, Okay, this isn’t working. Like, well, yeah, let’s redo the whole thing, and we’re good with that, right?

Christian Klepp 30:21

Well, that’s, that’s why you’re there, right?

Michael Liebowitz 30:23

Yeah.

Christian Klepp 30:24

Yeah, fantastic.

Michael Liebowitz 30:25

I like working with technical founders because they’re all about the, obviously, the technology. They can’t get out of their own way. And when I uncover the beliefs are, like, I had no idea that was in there. Like, yeah, let’s, let’s, let’s start leveraging the stuff that works. You still get to have your stuff. It’s just coming later in the communication. The first two things here’s actionable. The first two things any piece of communication you should do, especially a website, is what’s the main outcome? What’s the core belief? Sometimes a message is a belief outcome combo, right? And that’s usually in the form of what I call a meta frame. And what’s the because the company does a whole bunch of things, and you find the meta frame that captures all of them into one bucket, those tend to be a belief in outcome combo. But start with the outcome, especially like me. This is the Donald Miller stuff, the you know, story brand. It’s all about them. So the first payment headline, first headline is what they get. But don’t get too tactical. Make what they get. The main outcome of the thing you deliver, you’re going to get a report that does X, Y and Z, like, no, what do they have when they have a report right?

Michael Liebowitz 31:42

And then the next line, I kid you not, the next line needs to be what the company believes to be true, and the beliefs do not have to be profound. I literally got a company going from flat sales to 10% jump or 10% jump in one month based on the belief it’s fun to show off.

Christian Klepp 32:08

Really?

Michael Liebowitz 32:08

Not profound whatsoever. Yeah, it was a company that made cooking gadgets.

Christian Klepp 32:15

Okay.

Michael Liebowitz 32:15

And they were saying, hey, buy our stuff. It’s makes food quickly. No, no skill necessary. It’s more it’s perfect. Every time those stories are competition, who freaking cares? But when we discovered finally had to, like, get the CEO to finally feel comfortable enough to admit it, he said, I just love showing off the food, the food I make. I just love it. When people say, Holy crap, you made this. This is unbelievable. And everyone in the room just went, Yeah, well, of course they did, because the CEO hired like kind he didn’t know he was doing it, yeah, but he hired people. It was like himself, and they all obviously liked cooking. It was one of the criteria he wanted. But they all loved that moment. You know what? They like to show off. So this turned into a message of, instead of, hey, buy our gadgets, it’s perfect food and blah, blah, blah, it’s, would you like to be the star of the dinner party? It’s an identity appeal, right? Anyone who says that’s like me, I want to be the star of the dinner party. And of course, the imagery we have is a dinner party situation where all the attention is going to one person, right? And it just hit, it opened up new avenues for where they market, including some unexpected places, like on Facebook, targeting people who have had like are interested in cosmetic surgery, not reconstructive, but cosmetic, like Botox and things like that. Because who likes to show off as well? I’m my appearance. I like to how I appear. It matters to me, so they mark it there. And lo and behold, there was an audience there with this message for cooking gadgets.

Michael Liebowitz 33:48

Tell people what you believe. Now that example I just gave you the belief does not have to be explicit, like it’s fun to show off, but you want to communicate that that’s what we’re all here for, right? And definitely some of their communication did say, you know, shit, let’s, let’s face it, showing off is fun, isn’t it? Right? Let’s kind of like, be real with your audience. And like, hell yeah, it is right, where you’re among friends here, but that’s the most overlooked piece. Just tell people what the main belief is, and you’ve hooked them. The rest is the details.

Christian Klepp 34:29

Yeah, yeah, no, for sure. For sure. Okay, here comes the soapbox question.

Michael Liebowitz 34:36

Okay.

Christian Klepp 34:36

All right, yeah, a status quo in your area of expertise that you passionately disagree with, and why?

Michael Liebowitz 34:45

Okay, here’s what I disagree with. There is a conventional wisdom in communication slash marketing that says you have to understand your customer. Now, it’s not that I disagree with that, but I think it is step two, when often it is thought of as step one, because sales is a relationship, and guess what? The business is part of the relationship. The business is involved, and not just the customer. And this is where you get to, like, pure transactional sales that are so easy to switch. And just like, we’ll pick whoever has the best price, because it gets too transactional. And all you did was say, our customers say they want this, so we’re going to give them that. Okay, you and the 100 other companies that I can throw a stick in the middle of the road, and there it’s going to be, within five miles of them.

Michael Liebowitz 35:53

To fully understand your customer, you have to first understand yourself. That is the level up. Step one is you have to really understand yourself, because you are in the equation, and honestly, you get to say who you want to be in a relationship with, right? So that has to be step one. And I’ll I tell you, marketers, this will help you ask better questions to get the customer insights, because once you know what the company you are marketing for, what they’re really all about, on that belief level, that meaning level, even we haven’t talked about this yet, but what I call belonging traits. Oh my god, belonging traits blow ICP (Ideal Customer Profile) out of the water, right? ICP is like, who, like, where do they find themselves in the world, and what are their needs and such like that. Great belonging traits, literally like, what makes them feel like they belong with this business, like, on that fundamental core level, by the way, belonging is one of the fundamental needs of all human beings that we cannot survive without. Once you have that, and you know you’re looking for like kind you can go find those people and then start asking them questions. Because if you just go, like, find ask questions to the audience, a lot of those people would probably never buy from you in the first place because of that identity mismatch.

Christian Klepp 37:24

Yeah, no. 100% with you on that one. I mean understanding yourself first.

Michael Liebowitz 37:30

Yeah.

Christian Klepp 37:30

Before immediately defaulting like, who’s our?

Michael Liebowitz 37:33

Yeah.

Christian Klepp 37:34

Our customers, who’s our target audience, right?

Michael Liebowitz 37:36

Yeah, yeah, for sure. And if you’re and if you’re a startup, this will help you find product market fit faster.

Christian Klepp 37:46

Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. Michael, wow, this has been a dynamite conversation, man, I enjoyed it.

Michael Liebowitz 37:53

Thank you.

Christian Klepp 37:54

Thank you so much for coming on and for sharing your experience and expertise with the listener. You’ve certainly given me a lot to think about, and I hope that the same holds true for our audience. But please, a quick introduction to yourself and how folks out there can get in touch with you, especially if they’re struggling with messaging.

Michael Liebowitz 38:10

Yeah. So I’m on LinkedIn quite a bit. You can find me at Michael J Leibowitz, you’ll see the picture of me has me like, well, it’s no it’s got a picture of me saying I got question marks in the background and like a chalkboard thing. So feel free to connect with me there. Ask me a question. But if you really want to dive into the neuroscience, whether you are working on a message or not, but including if you’re working on your own messaging is I have a workshop every month that’s really easy to really accessible where. And I say it’s a workshop. This is a you get work done in this thing is two hours. It’s open to everybody. And the first part is you’re going to learn all about the neuroscience and how to apply it to a messaging strategy. And then in a second part is, now that you’ve learned that framework, and I’ve told you, beliefs are the main piece of it. I do an investigation of everyone in the room on the core belief within their business, basically, which is forming the core of their messaging. We we uncover as far as we can get in a little bit of time, but you definitely come back with a better understanding of your message than you did coming in, for sure.

Christian Klepp 39:22

Fantastic. Is there a link anywhere online where people can access that?

Michael Liebowitz 39:26

Oh, yeah, go to my website, https://www.mindmagnetizer.com/, it’s the only CTA (Call To Action) on there to go to the workshop, and I’ll take it to a landing page where you can learn more about it. And it’s all run through Eventbrite.

Christian Klepp 39:41

So, okay, okay, fantastic. We’ll include the link in the show notes to this episode.

Michael Liebowitz 39:45

Fantastic.

Christian Klepp 39:46

All right, once again, Michael, thank you so much for your time. Take care, stay safe and talk to you soon.

Michael Liebowitz 39:51

Thank you, Christian. I’ve enjoyed it.

Christian Klepp 39:53

All right. Bye for now.

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