Learn the Lyrics
Describe the problem better than your customer and they assume you have the solution.
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Time to result
- ~weeks to results
- Steps
- 4
- Confidence
- 88%
Learn the Lyrics is Flynn's method for matching your message to the exact words your audience uses. He tells the story of his wife falling for a Backstreet Boys song after a breakup because every lyric described what she was going through — the song connected because its words matched her moment. In business, offers fail when the 'lyrics' we share don't match the words the audience uses for their problems. The practical engine is an open-ended survey that harvests verbatim language, which you then feed back into your copy so people feel deeply understood.
Origin
Flynn frames the idea through his wife's teenage Backstreet Boys story in his book Super Fans, and credits old-school marketer Jay Abraham's line that defining the problem better than the customer makes them assume you have the solution.
Core principles
- 01It is not enough to understand your audience's problems — you must know how they describe those problems.
- 02If you can define the problem better than your target customer, they assume you have the solution.
- 03Your message connects when its lyrics match exactly where the person is in their life.
- 04The audience's own words, fed back to them, feel almost like mind-reading.
How to run it
- 1
Ask an open-ended challenge question
Survey your audience with a question like 'What's your number one challenge right now related to X?' and keep it open-ended so people type in their own words.
Pro tip Open-ended is non-negotiable — multiple choice destroys the verbatim language you're mining for.
- 2
Collect the verbatim language
Gather the typed responses and note the specific phrases, metaphors, and descriptions people use for their pain.
- 3
Feed the lyrics back
Reuse those exact words in your emails, sales pages, and content so the audience recognizes themselves.
Pro tip It feels almost like cheating — you're returning the words they already gave you.
- 4
Define the problem better than they can
Articulate the audience's struggle so precisely that they conclude you must also have the solution.
In the wild
Flynn's wife, at 15 and crying after a bad breakup, heard 'Quit Playing Games With My Heart' on the radio. She'd heard it before, but this time every lyric described exactly what she was feeling, and that moment launched her lifelong fandom — concerts, albums, and a closet bin of memorabilia.
→ Illustrates that connection happens when the words match the person's exact situation, the same mechanism Flynn applies to marketing copy.
Common mistakes
Understanding the problem but not the language
Knowing what pains your audience is only half the job; using your own words instead of theirs keeps the message from landing.
Closed survey questions
Multiple-choice surveys tally opinions but strip away the verbatim phrasing you need to mirror back to the audience.
Is it for you?
Best for
Anyone writing content, copy, or offers who wants their message to resonate instead of slide past.
Not ideal for
Products with no identifiable audience pain or where the buyer can't articulate their problem.
From the transcript
“if you can Define the problem better than your Target customer they're going to automatically assume that you have the solution”
“you take those answers and then you just give them back to to everybody else in your emails and your sales copy”
From the episode
Pat Flynn: Online Business 101, How to Generate 6 Figures of Passive Income and Create a Cult of Superfans
Pat Flynn