Most training, consulting, and coaching prospects won’t spend much time trying to figure out how your solutions relate to their specific challenges.

If you want their full attention, you need to get to the main point of your message as quickly and clearly as possible.

Last week, I shared the first part of a strategic narrative—Characters/Setting/Challenge (Current State).

Today, we’ll move on to the…

Big Idea

Your Big Idea is a short, impactful statement that makes a bold claim about your ideal clients’ challenges, and exactly how they should go about solving them.

Think of your Big Idea as the bridge between your prospects’ current state and future state.

Why not just jump straight into the details of your solutions?

Because, if you go from “your challenge” to a list of ways you can help solve it, you risk burying prospects with too many details before you’ve got their full attention.

People need a bit of context in order to evaluate whether your solution is the RIGHT one for them.

Your Big Idea makes a bold claim that your prospects will either agree or disagree with. If they agree with your perspective, they’ll be open to learning more about how you can help them. If they disagree, then they’re probably not a good fit to begin with.

Here’s an example from my own home page (as of September, 2024).

My strategic narrative’s Current State (Characters/Setting/Challenge) includes:

• You’ve hit a plateau in your training, consulting, or coaching business.
• You aren’t attracting as many new clients as you need.
• It can be hard to know what to change in your marketing to fix the problem.
• With so many new concepts to learn and options to consider, it’s no wonder you feel overwhelmed and stuck in place.

Here’s my Big Idea:

• Fine-tuning your marketing doesn’t need to be complicated. You just need the right guide to help you focus on the key fundamentals—the 20% of actions that drive 80% of the impact.

The big, bold statement I’m making is:

A) Marketing doesn’t need to be complicated.

B) Successful marketing is built around the 80/20 principle.

Some people will agree with this perspective, and others won’t. But by offering a specific and clear Big Idea, I’m making it easy for my ideal prospects to understand how I can help them and why it matters, and for non-ideal prospects to move on to someone else who may be a better fit.

That’s why the second part of your strategic narrative—the Big Idea—has to be clear, concise, and uncompromising.

Ask yourself:

• What’s a big, bold claim you can make about your ideal clients’ challenges, and exactly how they can solve them?
• Are you willing to let go of the non-ideal prospects who don’t agree with your perspective on how to solve their problem?