How to Use AI to Find Your Reader's Deepest Pain Points (And Turn Them Into Business Gold)
Step 2 of Crafting Your UVP: Discover the pain points your audience will pay to solve
Welcome to the depths, Deep Writers.
In the last article, we crafted a strong value statement that communicates the unique value our writing business provides.
If you missed it, check it out first as today’s framework builds upon it.
Today, we’ll build the second pillar of our UVP: understanding our ideal reader’s pain points.
After completing this framework (15-20 minutes), you’ll have:
3-5 deeply resonant pain points your ideal readers/customers will pay to solve
Clear understanding of what matters most to your them
Foundation for creating targeted solutions
Many writers approach customer research using AI like a Google search:
“What problems do writing entrepreneurs face?”
“What challenges do content creators have?”
“What do writers struggle with?”
This leads to equally generic answers that could apply to anyone:
“Writers struggle with consistency”
“Content creators need better systems”
“Writing entrepreneurs want to scale”
These surface-level insights won’t help you differentiate your business.
Let’s fix that.
The Pain Point Discovery Framework
In the last article, we used Deep Research to conduct a market research on our niche and target market.
We’ll use that document and ask AI to generate the pain points our business will resolve.
Create a new chat session with Claude or GPT-4 and paste this prompt:
You are Justin Welsh, the expert online businessperson and copywriter. You excel in positioning online brands so they stand out from the competition. You have helped 100+ writing businesses craft their unique value proposition.
You are the chief strategist and growth expert for {BUSINESS_NAME}.
Here's the value statement of our business: {VALUE_STATEMENT}.
We have conducted a thorough market research to understand the challenges and aspirations of our ideal reader. I have attached the report.
<TASK>
Your task is to analyze the research report and identify the top 3-5 pain points (challenges/worries/fears/objections) our ideal reader will pay us to solve.
For each pain point, follow this structure exactly:
1. Brief description of the pain point
2. Detailed description of the pain point
3. Why it is important to solve this problem
4. On a scale of 1–10, how important it is to solve this problem (10 = highest importance)
</TASK>
<OUTPUT_INSTRUCTIONS>
* Focus only on pain points (we will derive aspirations later).
* Provide clear, concise answers.
* Each pain point should be formatted with the four bullet points listed above.
* Aim for a short list of 3–5 pain points.
</OUTPUT_INSTRUCTIONS>
Begin now.{BUSINESS_NAME}: Replace with the name of your business{VALUE_STATEMENT}: Insert the value statement created in in Step 1.
Run the prompt 3-4 times in different chat sessions. You can also try different language models like GPT, Claude, Gemini etc.
From each session, collect unique pain point(s) rated 9 or 10.
Aim for 3-5 final pain points.
This generated specific, actionable pain points for Deep Writing:
“I need help automating parts of my writing process to free up more time for creativity and strategy.” (Importance: 10)
“I can’t reliably produce high-quality AI-assisted content” (Importance: 10)
“I know AI has potential, but I struggle to connect what I learn to my writing business.” (Importance: 9)
Converting Pain Points to Aspirations
Once you’ve finalized the pain points, let’s convert them to customer aspirations.
Aspiration is what our ideal reader/customer must be able to do or should be able to feel after experiencing our product.
Use this prompt in a new chat session:
This is the value statement of {BUSINESS_NAME}:
#####
{VALUE_STATEMENT}
#####
Here are the pain points that {BUSINESS_NAME} will solve:
#####
{PAIN_POINTS}
#####
<TASK>
Convert each of these pain points into customer aspirations that come after alleviating these pain points.
</TASK>
<OUTPUT_STRUCTURE>
For each pain point, follow this structure exactly:
1. Brief description of the pain point (copied as it is)
2. Brief aspiration after alleviating this pain point
3. Detailed aspiration after alleviating this pain point
</OUTPUT_STRUCTURE>
Begin now.{BUSINESS_NAME}: Replace with the name of your business{VALUE_STATEMENT}: Insert the value statement{PAIN_POINTS}: Insert the pain points discovered in the last step
For Deep Writing, our pain points transformed into these powerful aspirations:
“I have streamlined, AI-driven workflows that handle repetitive tasks, allowing me to focus on high-level creative and strategic work.”
“I confidently apply AI tools to every aspect of my writing business, driving growth and innovation.”
“I consistently create original, thought-provoking content that positions me as an expert in my niche.”
What’s Next?
Save your pain points and aspirations in separate files text files.
Let’s now move to step 3 of crafting the UVP: Building a movement around your business that gives your readers a cause to rally behind and transforms them into fans:
