Brian Gubernick explains WIFM (What's In It For Me?), the idea that people unconsciously filter every request through self-interest. By anticipating what others want to gain, you can craft pitches and messages that answer that question before they ask, increasing your influence in business and personal relationships.
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Thank you for joining me today. It's Brian Gubernick, and welcome to the No Days Off podcast, where we believe that every single day brings a new opportunity to get better. Let's get into today's topic. Today I want to talk about WIFM. W-I-I-F-M. It's an acronym and it stands for What's in it for me? Now, this acronym is known in marketing and communication, marketing and sales. That's where it's typically discussed, this acronym. And it's, it's used as a strategy or a methodology to determining or evaluating the importance of somebody's needs or interests. Uh, maybe if you're in marketing, you're trying to figure out what's this target audience really about. What do they care about? What's important to them? How do we emphasize that? Or maybe if it's an individual, what's their pain points? Why should they care? When you're doing an evaluation, when you're determining a strategy in marketing, you're gonna ask, or you're gonna look at it from the customer's perspective, and you know that customer's asking, "What's in it for me?" The concept behind WIFM is that people are generally more interested in things that directly benefit or appeal to them. So if you're in marketing, if you're in sales, then you want to convey a message or promote a product or a service, and in doing so, you make certain you highlight the value. You make certain that you highlight the advantages or the benefits that the person you're speaking to, or the audience that you're speaking to, can actually get from that product or service. And so if you understand WIFM, if you understand how this factors into, to the decision-making process, then you know how to more effectively communicate your message. You can tailor a message that will resonate with the audience, that will resonate with the individual, and ideally increase their interest and their level of engagement. Now, why am I talking about this today? Well, many of our listeners here at No Days Off are in fact in sales and marketing. And if, if WIFM isn't top of mind for you, well, honestly, you're probably missing the mark. If you're not walking into the living room, the family room of the prospect you're selling to, or if you're not promoting some sort of service in, in, without WIFM at the top of your mind, you're, you're again missing the mark. You should always be asking yourself, what's in it for me, but from the customer's perspective. In other words, if you're walking into a room you better be prepared to show this individual the opportunities, the advantages, the benefits of working with you. Now, that's as it pertains to sales and marketing, but as I've been in business for some time, as I've been in life for some time, I've realized that this concept, this WIFM, this what's in it for me concept, this principle extends far beyond business. It extends far beyond sales and marketing. As a matter of fact, I think it's just a very, very basic internal human discussion. In other words, if you're human, then you are probably asking yourself, "What's in it for me?" on a fairly regular, dozens of times if not hundreds of times a day, uh, sort of way. Now, that does not make you a bad person. If you are asking constantly, "What's in it for me?" it It does not make you bad. It does not make you selfish. It just makes you human. I think all of us, right? Like whatever shows up on our calendar, whatever shows up in our life, we've got to weigh it against the other options available to us, where the other places that we can spend time, which inherently means we are judging how we're going to be spending the time by asking, well, what's in it for me? You know, is this a benefit to me, or is this benefit greater than the options available to me? Again, nothing wrong with this. This doesn't make you selfish. This makes you human. It's just a natural aspect of human decision-making, and it's a way that we kind of strike balance, um, and, and figure out, you know, what we're weighing and how we're weighing it and what matters and what's priority. You've got to constantly be using the filter, "What's in it for me?" So if I'm aiming to build a relationship with an individual, I've got to ask myself, well, knowing that that person's human on the other side of the table, knowing that they're going to ask, "What's in it for me?" I've got to ask myself, well, what is in it for them? What do I bring to the table? Why should they be intrigued by me? Why should they have a relationship with me? If I wanna collaborate with somebody on something, I know because they're human, they're asking, why should I collaborate with you? What's in it for me? And so I'm going to preemptively think through this, and I'm going to be ready to address that conversation that's going on in their head before they're able to ask questions. And they may not ask, what's in it for me? But they're gonna imply through a variety of questions, You know, that, that they're thinking that. And so if I want a team member, if I want to bring somebody into my world or join someone's team, they're asking what's in it for me. Anytime we're aiming to build a relationship, anytime we're aiming to, uh, take ownership of someone's time on their calendar, take a sliver of time they're going to be asking, "What's in it for me?" And so I think as a rule of life, we should be thinking to ourselves as we approach different subjects or different individuals, or we ask anybody for something, we should be thinking, "What's in it for them?" And then we should be solving for that. We should be coming up with solutions for that. We should be addressing what's in it for them before they even have to think around it. So the focusing question for you today, as you go about business today, as you go about living today, and you're meeting with certain people, uh, or you're taking up time on someone's calendar, or you're wanting to make a great first impression, you're wanting to make a difference in somebody's life, be certain to take a moment and ask yourself before you step into that room or get on the phone or wherever it may be, make sure you ask what's in it for them, because they're asking what's in it for me. So make sure you ask what's in it for them and get very, very clear around the answers to that. So the focusing question is, how could you leverage this mentality? How could you leverage this what's in it for me, uh, decision-making process to your advantage? How can you make an impression where others may fail? Because they're not thinking proactively around this subject. That's all we have for today, the No Days Off Podcast. Thank you so much for listening, and remember, every single day brings a new opportunity to get better. So let's get after it.
