There’s a prompt I give every single person I work with. It’s not a script. It’s not a content calendar. It’s not a list of hashtags. 

It’s five parts, and most service-based business owners can’t get through the first one without freezing up.

That’s not a knock. It’s actually important information because if you can’t fill this out with confidence, that’s why your DMs aren’t working. Not the tactic you’re using. Not the platform you’re on. Not the time of day you’re posting.

The foundation has a crack in it.

Monique couldn’t even finish the first blank when she came to me. She couldn’t clearly name who she helped, what problem she solved, or how she was going to help them. The day she finally could? She became completely booked out.

Here’s the prompt and why every single part of it matters.

Part 1: Your Target Audience — The Who

This is the one that trips people up the most because of the fear. The fear that if you get specific, you’re going to miss out on people. That if you name one person, everyone else is going to feel excluded and scroll past you.

Here’s why: you’re not alienating people by getting specific. You’re filtering out the people who were never going to buy from you in the first place. And those people? They’re the ones filling your DMs with pitches or disappearing after one message.

Getting specific isn’t about demographics like age or income bracket, though that can be helpful as a starting point. It’s about the type of work your person does. 

Is she a VA? A social media manager? 

A graphic designer? 

A coach? 

Because a six-figure coach and a service-based provider have completely different problems, even if both are stuck. 

Your message needs to speak to one of them, not both.

When you nail the who, you also stop trying to be on every platform at once. You can ask: where does she actually hang out? That’s where you show up. And that’s how you avoid burning out trying to maintain 10 different accounts by yourself.

Part 2: The Pain Point — The Why

This is where it gets good. And also where most people stop too soon.

A lot of service providers describe a behavior and call it a pain point. She’s not posting consistently. She’s struggling to make graphics. She’s not getting engagement. Those are behaviors. The real pain point is what she believes about herself because of that behavior. What does she think it means? What does she think is possible or impossible because of it?

Think about it in layers. Layer one: she’s struggling to make graphics consistently. Okay. Layer two: she’s struggling to see the value in making graphics at all. Getting warmer. Layer three: she doesn’t have a strategy, has no idea what she’s doing, and doesn’t want to spend another hour creating graphics that don’t do anything for her business when she could just be with her kids.

Do you see how different that is? Layer three is what keeps her up at night. That’s what you name in your message. Not the behavior on the surface, the belief underneath it.

Part 3: Your Program — The What

Here’s something that trips a lot of people up: your person isn’t buying your service. She’s buying the outcome of your service. The physical, tangible thing she walks away with.

‘Virtual assistant services’ is not a program description. Every VA offers that. ‘Done-for-you backend system that gives you your time back’, now that’s something she wants to buy.

When you describe your program, skip the features and go straight to the result. What does she actually get? What changes in her business, and her life, because you were in it? That’s the program description that makes people stop scrolling.

Part 4: Your Framework — The Route

Think of your framework as the route and your program as the car. The car gets her there. The route shows her exactly how.

What does month one look like? Month three? Month six? What are the pit stops along the way, the things she’ll have, know, or be able to do at each stage? When you map this out, two things happen: you realize how much you actually know, and your person can picture herself in the journey.

Don’t be scared to share this. Sharing your route won’t get you copied, it’ll get you clients. The way you deliver it is yours. Nobody else can duplicate that.

Part 5: The Transformation — The Destination

This is the emotional piece. And it’s the one that makes or breaks whether someone actually wants what you’re selling.

‘So you can spend more time with your family’ is too vague. Everyone knows they could do that. The real transformation is more specific and more felt: ‘So you can tuck your babies into bed and actually watch your favorite show while your business runs smoothly behind the scenes.’ That’s what she wants. Not the concept, the specific feeling of it actually happening.

When you write the transformation, ask yourself: what does she want to feel? What does she want to be able to do that she can’t do right now? Make it real. Make it hers.

Your Homework

Fill out all five parts. And when you get stuck, and you will get stuck somewhere, that’s actually useful information. It shows you exactly where your foundation needs work.

If the target audience part has you frozen, the Spark the Conversation Challenge is where to start. Five days, 20 minutes a day, completely free. By the end, you’ll have a copy mining blueprint built on your audience’s real language so you know exactly who you’re talking to and what they need to hear.

👉  Join the free Spark the Conversation Challenge: lisbethgraham.co/freechallenge

And if you want to go deeper, build the whole foundation, refine your message, and learn to close confidently in the DMs, The Phoenix Experience is where that work gets done.

👉  Learn more about The Phoenix Experience: lisbethgraham.co/thephoenixexperience

Your people are out there. They just need to hear the right thing from you first.