Understand Your Buyer > How People Work > Correlation & Causation
What is it?
Correlation and Causation looks at the fact that some things may seem to be connected, but they aren’t. For example, you might find it difficult to explain your offering.
Your ability to communicate what you do has no correlation to your ability to do what you do, but for potential buyers, if you can’t explain to them what you do, they presume you aren’t any good at it.
Why does it work?
This is important, because it can cost you the sale without even realising it. If you don’t have a Clear Sales Message and if you aren’t confident when communicating your offering, your buyers will lose confidence in you. They take your lack of ability at selling your offering to imply a lack of ability to deliver results.
Whilst this isn’t the case, it’s this false conclusion that can cost you the sale. It’s correlation, not causation.
How can you use it?
Correlation and causation occurs throughout your business, but the main focus here is on your ability to clearly and confidently communicate your offering. If you can’t answer common client questions or appear unconfident it can incorrectly make your prospects presume you aren’t good at what you do.
Make sure you are fully prepared to explain what you do and how you differentiate in the marketplace as well as other common client questions.
Hypothetical Example:
A web developer is excellent at building fast, secure websites, but when meeting a potential client, they struggle to explain the technical details in simple terms. The client walks away thinking, “If they can’t clearly explain what they do, maybe they aren’t very good at it.”
In reality, the developer’s lack of communication skills has no correlation with their ability to build high-quality websites—but the buyer’s perception links the two, costing them the sale.
To fix this, the developer works on a Clear Sales Message™ and starts saying:
“We build websites that load twice as fast as your current one, helping you keep customers on your site and rank higher on Google.”
This confident explanation restores the buyer’s trust and highlights the real value of the service.
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