I’m met with the aroma of coffee as I enter the kitchen and head to the porch. I crack the door and hear the choir of birds singing me a melody that would be sure to brighten anyone’s day. The sun is beaming and as I approach the swing to take my seat…
“Hey, Dave!”
Wouldn’t you know it? The new neighbor Hank is already up and at ’em. The man lives for yard work on a Saturday morning.
“Hey Hank, how are you?”
Mistake.
“Well, Dave I just purchased some of this new weed killer here and it’s been a total game-changer. Just look at the wonders it’s done for my lawn!”
Begrudgingly, I pull myself from my porch to enter an endless conversation that will surely end before noon…I hope.
I glance over the fence and peer into Hank’s yard. The yard is noticeably free of weeds and does look pretty spectacular. Hank goes on to ramble about all the chemicals that make up the concentrate. Midway through his meandering, Hank stops and makes his way to the fence that separates my life from his.
Hank stretches to his tiptoes and pulls himself up on the fence and squints into my yard.
“Yeah Dave, looks like you could use some of my weed killer. You can grab a case of it for $29.95. It really isn’t that expensive when you consider…”
“Thanks, Hank, that sounds nice. I’ll have to pick some up and try it out”. I stop Hank before he can ensue on yet another tangent.
I make an excuse about a niece’s birthday party I need to get to and avert quickly.
The next day, I venture to my yard to do some work of my own.
“Wow”, I think to myself. Hank might have been right. I do have quite a few weeds growing in the yard. He could have been onto something with his weed killer.
I can’t admit this to him; that would be the death of me. I’m sure my normal remedy will work just fine in cleaning these weeds up.
As I make my way to the other side of the yard to begin my mission, I see my neighbor Mary. It appears she’s doing some yard work of her own. Mary glances up to see me and shouts
“Hey Dave, you’ve got to come check this out!”
As I peek over the fence, my jaw drops. Mary is standing there, with an excessive smile on her face, wielding a bottle of the exact same weed killer Hank couldn’t shut up about.
“Dave, you’ve got to try this! It’s worked miracles on my yard!”
Oh boy, here we go again.
“That’s great, Mary. I might have to pick some of that up for myself!”
But it doesn’t stop there. Next, my neighbor Bill is exterminating his yard with the same stuff!
Andy is putting on a weed-killing clinic in his yard! Mike has just put his weed eater up for sale because there’s no longer a need for it!
Okay, I have got to try it!
I jump in the truck, reverse out of my driveway, and fly past the greatest weed massacre of the century.
I arrive at the home store and grab up as many bottles as I can. Arms hugged tight around the remaining supply, I checkout and race home to try it out.
The results are almost instantaneous. The weeds forfeit to my onslaught of spraying, and I’ve never been more pleased with my yard in my entire life. Next thing you know, I’m leaving raving customer reviews on their site. I’m signing up for a year’s supply, along with their customer rewards program.
The next weekend rolls around and there I am again, opening up the door to my front porch coffee in hand. I breathe in the cool morning air, admire my weedless yard, and bend to take my seat…”
“Hey, Dave!” It’s Hank. “I just purchased this new irrigation system for my lawn, you gotta check it out!”
We’ve all been there. First, we become aware of something that’s available to us on the market. Maybe it’s not necessarily something that grabs our attention right away, but we become familiar with it if a need does arise (just as Dave became aware of Hank’s flawless yard).
But it isn’t until our interest peaks that we decide to take action. The more Dave started to examine his own yard, the more interested he became in pursuing a solution.
However, that subtle interest begins to form into a burning desire once Dave is exposed to that same product over and over again. Think of your typical online shopping journey. Maybe there’s something you become interested in and add it to your cart so you don’t forget. You’re not quite ready to make the purchase, so you continue on to the rest of the internet. That same item becomes your shadow in the form of an ad, as you browse the web.
That desire becomes so strong that eventually, you act on it. Dave’s pride to withstand Hank’s persistence eventually falls to the greater need for a beautiful yard. Now inspired by the great results, Dave transitions into a member of the loyal following his neighborhood has become.
