How to Sell to Sophisticated vs. Unsophisticated Markets: Increase Your Close Rate 10%+ 🔥
In this video Jake Setterlun explains how to recognize the sophistication level of the market you’re selling to and how to adapt your positioning, language, and offers accordingly. He first outlines three universal buyer categories—solution‑aware, problem‑aware, and unaware—showing how each segment requires different messaging and funnel tactics (e.g., guarantees for solution‑aware prospects, problem‑focused ads for problem‑aware, and low‑ticket educational offers for unaware). He then contrasts two market types. For sophisticated markets, he advises using expert‑level terminology (CTR, CVR, ROAS, etc.) to educate, impress, and build trust, illustrating with a “Metabolic Shred Protocol” aimed at knowledgeable bodybuilders. For unsophisticated markets, he stresses speaking the prospect’s language, simplifying the deliverable, and focusing on clear outcomes, exemplified by a “Menopause Reset Method” for post‑menopausal women. Throughout, he emphasizes that aligning language with the prospect’s expertise—whether you’re showcasing your own technical depth or mirroring the client’s industry terms—creates credibility and boosts conversion rates.
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What's going on everybody? In this video, I want to run through how to properly identify and capitalize on the type of market that you're currently selling to. And it really comes down to your current market's sophistication. And to be quite honest with you, this is what's allowed us to have a decent amount of success in terms of the businesses that we run is identifying who we're actually selling to. Are we selling to a sophisticated market or are we selling to a market that is not that sophisticated? And there are a couple market truths that you do have to be aware of that are just present no matter if it's a sophisticated or unsophisticated market. And that is you are always gonna have people and you're always gonna have outliers that are number one, solution aware. They understand that whatever you're offering, that there's other people like you that are offering those solutions in the market. There is always going to be problem aware people, and those problem aware individuals are going to be individuals that understand that they have a problem. And whatever you're selling them is going to solve that problem. But they're not quite there yet in terms of understanding that there's all these providers on the market that are actually solving those specific problems and offering those services, information, whatever it might be. And then lastly, you have your third bucket of individuals, which are your unaware people. And I don't mean that they are unaware in terms of just like oblivious to what's going on around them. It's really that they're just unaware that they are going to have those problems. Uh, they're not there yet for whatever you're selling them. They understand that, you know, they are in that category. Let's say I'm selling ads to insurance agents. They might not align with the fact that like, oh, you know, I don't have enough qualified leads because to them they don't have that problem yet. So they're not there yet, but it doesn't mean that you can't market to them. It doesn't mean that you can't drive them into your funnel and nurture them into somebody that will become a customer in the future. So if we look at examples of this, You have your solution-aware individuals, and these are the individuals that are understanding of what's in the market. So we're going to advertise to them in terms of what the actual end result is and even the guarantee. So we guarantee X return, we guarantee this many qualified booked appointments, we guarantee this transformation in your business, whatever you're selling, that's going to be how you actually have to sell to those individuals. You have your problem-aware people where you're specifically advertising the problem that you're going to solve. So again, using that example of insurance agents, I'm going to advertise to them the way that, you know, is basically me solving their problems. So that's get qualified booked appointments with policy seekers or buyers, insurance buyers, whatever it might be. But that's going to be how you actually advertise to those people because you're solving the problem that they have, which is I don't have enough qualified people that are looking to buy, that are looking for X, Y, and Z. And then lastly, you have your unaware individuals, and these are great people for, again, nurturing, even selling these people low-ticket products. so that they're in your ecosystem, but they're not ready for a call funnel. They're not ready to get on the phone and actually buy from you right then and there. So an ad going out to that type of individual is going to read something along the lines of, the reason you will fail is because you don't have X. Or, you know, Mr., Mrs. Insurance Agent, you have all of these leads that you're currently dealing with, but once you get into business, you're going to need a way to qualify those people. So again, it has to be a little bit more of an educational type of a positioning so that you obviously are positioned as the solution to the problem when they actually have those problems. Another great thing to do with those people while we're on that topic is let's just say that these people right here don't even have enough leads to understand that a problem they're going to have is qualified leads. So you might run a low-ticket offer to these people that says, hey, here's, you know, 101 ways to generate leads for your business. Now, obviously, a problem that they're going to run into once they are getting these leads is that, well, they're not qualified. So that is going to lead them into your service. So That is just an overall market truth of what you're gonna run into. But now we have both of our markets and how do we actually position products in these markets? And I always like looking at the sophisticated market first because that's going to be something that actually a lot of you as business owners are gonna relate to because it's how you would like to be sold to versus you really don't understand what it looks like for an unsophisticated market, which is who you're— most of you are actually selling to. A lot of times you're not selling to them the way that they need to be sold to. So if we look at a sophisticated market first, you have what I like to call language based off of your expertise and what you are selling them. So the goal is to number one, educate them, impress them, and even borderline overwhelm them with the actual pitch and the information that you're giving to them. You wanna impress the hell out of 'em. So if, you know, as an example, I'm selling ads to somebody that is a marketing agency owner, I need to know my stuff. So I need to be talking CTR, CVR, conversion rate optimization, like all of those things, because that person's already pretty educated, again, being a sophisticated buyer. So the biggest thing that I need to do for my company is I need to impress the hell out of them and really show them that we know what we're talking about. And again, why? It's because sophisticated buyers are gonna trust people that are educated. They don't care that you're just, you know, really slick, you know, a good salesperson solving their problem. They are gonna buy from people that are educated, and that's going to allow them to trust them and to buy. So really cool way to look at this is an example offer. So I have 2 different fitness coaching offers to show you, and the first one as an example offer is going to be the Metabolic Shred Protocol. And we help bodybuilders and physique athletes achieve stage-ready conditioning by optimizing metabolism flux through carb cycling and carb manipulation. So if we highlight some of this, Cardio manipulation, carb cycling, metabolic flux—those are all very specific things that have to do with bodybuilders. But what are bodybuilders at the end of the day? They are very educated individuals. They've dedicated their life—even physique athletes—and dedicated their life to understanding what is fitness. How do I lift? How do I eat? How do I do cardio? So when you're taunting these specific things, it's going to make your offer not only very attractive. But it's going to start to show them like, hey, this guy knows what he's talking about, and you're going to attract that right audience knowing that, you know, I need to sell it to bodybuilders and physique athletes and they are experts in their field. I'm just selling them, you know, this accountability and this specific protocol. So you need to take it one step further. But again, that all goes back to, yes, I am selling to those individuals. Not only, you know, yes, it is a little bit of you using your own language, but they might have never heard about cardio manipulation or You know, some of them, some may not have heard about carb cycling or metabolic, metabolism flux. So those are all going to be very unique things to them. They're like, oh, I've never really thought of cardio manipulation. What is that? It piques their interest. I haven't heard of that. So then they come in and they're like, okay, like this makes sense, but I need to flaunt my knowledge about metabolism, about nutrition, and about just overall working with bodybuilders and physique athletes. Otherwise, they're never going to trust me. And if they don't trust me and they think I'm stupider than them, they're never going to buy from me. Now, on the other side of the equation, we have our unsophisticated markets, and these are going to be individuals that, like over here, they understand a lot about their industry, but they also understand a lot about what they're buying. They're experts at what they're buying. Again, think of a marketing agency owner hiring an ads agency to run their internal ads. That's an example of that. Now, unsophisticated markets. So these are individuals that are experts in their specific field, but they are not experts in what they're buying from you, which means that you really need to dumb it down. So if we start to look at this, the biggest thing is using language based on the prospect's expertise, not your own. So if we start to compare and contrast this over here, we are using language based off of your expertise. Over here, we're using language based off of the prospect's expertise. So the goal is Number one, as far as the deliverable goals and what you're selling them, keep it simple, but use their language, not your own. And overall, again, sell the outcome and show results. So I'm going to show you an example of what this looks like, but the biggest key takeaway here is to use their language when you're communicating to them. If I'm talking to an insurance agent and trying to sell them my marketing system, I'm going to say, hey, we can get leads for universal insurance policies, for P&C, for term policies, whatever that might be, I'm gonna be using language that they understand. I'm not gonna pretend that I know all of this stuff about policies. And, you know, in terms, I'm not trying to sell them an insurance policy, but I'm showing them that, hey, if you're gonna buy marketing from me, I'm gonna understand what you're actually selling in terms of a product. Again, over here, there's a difference. You need to sell your expertise, where over here you need to create trust by showing the prospect that you are an expert in their field. And again, why is this so important? I just mentioned it. So unsophisticated want alignment and solutions to their specific problem. And yes, again, prove your expertise by using their language, but don't confuse them. That is a big mistake a lot of you make because you need to have a clear path to success. If I got on with, with an insurance agent and I was using all of these big ad terms, CVR, CTR, ROAS, whatever you're selling them, they're not gonna understand the terms that you use in your industry, but they understand the terms that they use in their industry. So as long as you can communicate in their language, again, they're gonna see you as an expert. And then obviously, you know, you having a good product for them, uh, is obviously gonna establish trust. But if it's a clear path to success, it's gonna show that number one, you're an expert in their field. you have a good product, and if you do everything else that we teach in terms of the offer code and a propulsion offer, there is no reason why that person is not gonna buy from you. So let's look at an example, and I have a Menopause Reset Method. So this is for post-menopause women, and the offer statement is, we help post-menopause women regain confidence, boost energy, and finally achieve their dream body without extreme diets, workouts that don't fit their lifestyle. So we are showing not only by saying, hey, post-menopausal woman, Instead of saying, you know, 50+, 60+ women, we're gonna use the term postmenopausal woman because that is gonna show that I know about that type of an individual. You know, I'm also gonna hit on specific things that they're having as problems as far as boosting energy. I could even add in here that I probably should have something along the lines of hormones and hormone balance because again, that is something that menopausal women, as they go through menopause, they are aware of those things happening. And if I show them that I understand what they're going through, again, that I can speak in their language, that, you know, that is going to build trust and that they're going to work with me. But if I put something along the lines in here saying, hey, you know, postmenopausal women, we're going to help with metabolism flux, carb cycling, cardio manipulation, and we're going to do that to help you get, you know, in the best shape of your life, you're going to turn a lot of those individuals away because you're using those words that are going to scare them off versus keeping it simple and focusing on the results. So overall, by understanding both of these markets being a sophisticated and unsophisticated market, you can start to position your offer as the solution to somebody's problem, obviously, but doing it in the right language that is gonna make you attractive to those specific individuals. And again, at the end of the day, you know, that is to help your business and help you make more money.
