C O M P E L L I N G N E E D N A R R A R T I V E

C A T I E H A R R I S . C O M

Catie Harris

A Compelling Need Narrative is a statement from customers about what

they really want. The compelling need narrative is the most important

element of starting any business and should be what new and hopeful

entrepreneurs focus the bulk of their energy on creating.

Your compelling need narrative is the essence of everything your

business is built upon. It is the frustrations of your customers, a sum of

the solutions they have tried and the benefits they desire to achieve with

your product or service.

The compelling need narrative is your company’s empathetic statement

that allows your customers to appreciate that you understand them.

And by extension, when you understand what someone wants, you are

in position to offer them a solution. The compelling need narrative is also

your marketing strategy.

Once you have articulated a clear and compelling message to market,

you can use the compelling need narrative to filter all marketing

collateral in your business.

For instance, if you want to know if a particular campaign will resonate

with your audience, run it through the compelling need narrative to see if

it fits with your message to market. Finally the compelling need narrative

is your strategy to stay consistent and on message. By staying on

message, you can provide more value and spend less time “selling”.

The empathy your company exudes with its compelling need narrative

makes your message more human and relatable. Your audience will be

much more likely to engage with you.

Sounds great right? But what is involved in crafting the compelling need

narrative and what does it include?

Craft the Narrative

The narrative itself comes directly from your audience and it involves

immersing yourself in the experience of their lives. As an immersion

technique, you need to interview up to 10 people who are your target

audience. But it’s not just a conversation you are having, you need to

employ a specific structure to the conversation that will get you to the

heart of the matter very quickly.

The Framework

The compelling need narrative uses a framework that I created to provide

structure to a conversation. I call this framework: The Fire Formula. The

FIRE Formula provides structure so that any conversation moves very

quickly to the point and what you need to know.

The compelling need narrative became a way for me to understand how to

make people’s lives better, how to prioritize their frustrations and to

communicate empathy for their issues. How is the compelling need

narrative structured with the FIRE Formula?

The Fire Formula

The FIRE Formula is a 4-part process that focuses on not only getting the

most compelling information out of your target audience but also works to

motivate your audience to seek for a solution to their problems. This

formula can be used in conversation or built into a survey template.

Conversations using this formula can also easily be recorded for use as

compelling testimonials on their own or condensed and combined into a

sizzle reel.

The 4 parts of the FIRE Formula are: Frustration, Interview, Re-imagine,

Eternal whys.

Frustration

The first part of the formula is uncovering the frustrations of your audience.

You will need to get to the root of your audience’s frustrations by asking them

what their biggest challenges and issues are.

Asking questions such as: “What is most frustrating about X?”. Then you

would want to follow it up as in any conversation with questions such as - can

you give me an example, why was it frustrating, how long has it been

frustrating, and how have you tried to solve this problem?

Interview your audience

The second part of the formula is asking them about what the frustration is

important to them. The thought behind this methodology has to do with

understanding how compelling the frustration is. In a hierarchy of frustrations,

where does this particular frustration stand?

This information is best elucidated in asking your target audience: “Why might

you want to [change your situation, fix your problem, do something different]?”

This seemingly simple question forces the person to focus on the first level of

a benefit that could occur if the frustration didn’t exist.

Re-imagine the results

The third part of the formula removes the frustration so audience has a chance

to imagine themselves in a world without it. In this part of the formula you

want to guide the person 2-3 years into the future, where magically the

frustration no longer exists. What is life like at that point?

Listen specifically for the words the person uses to describe what their own

transformation looks like. These are the words that you want to write down

and use in your marketing collateral.

Eternal Whys

Finally, the last part of the formula is asking the eternal whys. Take one of

the benefits that the person spoke of in the third part and ask why it is

important to him/her.

For example:

Benefit - “I want to lose weight.”

Response - “Why is that important to you?”

“Because I want to be healthy.”

Response - “Why?”

“Because I want to do things with my son”.

Response - “Why?”

“Because I don’t want him to grow up and think of me as lazy”

Response - “Why?”

“Because I want him to have a strong work ethic and not struggle through life

trying to make ends meet like I did.”

Sometimes it takes 5-6 whys to get to the heart of the matter.

You might think that the answer gets too personal too quickly and that most

people wouldn’t respond this way.

However, it’s been my experience that just asking why a few times is enough

to uncover some deeply hidden truths about someone. If the person is

staying superficial with you they may not completely trust you with the

information yet. You might want to go back to less threatening conversation.

Also try to avoid asking the eternal toddler-whys into utter nonsense. When

you hit a nerve or a seemingly good point then stop.

Putting It Altogether

So what is the purpose of all of this again?

Well, the compelling need narrative is very powerful because it taps into the

essence of the frustration that someone has.

If you were selling gym memberships, think how much more powerful your

marketing would be when you hone in a father-son relationship as a

motivator to get your audience to the gym, as opposed to people sweating

on treadmills (not appealing by the way).

Here is an example framework that will help you put the information into

paragraph form:

Frustration

[The biggest frustration] that [audience] has is a continuous challenge. The

main problem that they face is [compelling need that needs to be solved].

Interview

The way the [audience] attempts to solve the problem is [how do they solve

the problem now], but this is not optimal because it leads to [what

outcome]. The [audience] could try [substitute option], but [what is the most

common problem with each substitute].

Re-Imagine

If [audience] could [achieve a certain goal] that would lead to [positive

outcome], and their lives would clearly be improved.

Eternal Whys

Because [insert benefits].

P.S. To take your compelling need narrative even one step further, you

can use the FIRE formula to structured testimonials from your customers

and build them into sizzle reels to use in your marketing. After all nothing

sells better than the words and actions of others who have experienced a

transformation using your product or service.