What’s your possum in the washing machine?

My husband only calls me by name if we have company over.

My name came up in conversation so rarely while we were dating that on the few occasions he did say it, it always startled me, so over the years it became standard practice to only call my name when necessary to clarify which adult he was talking to. So when I was curled up in my jammies, reading in bed at 10:00 PM a Saturday night and I heard him shout, "ERINNN???" from the basement, I knew something was very, very wrong. 

I hurried downstairs, bracing for whatever horrible unknown. When I arrived, I found him standing six feet back from the laundry area, and he said in utter disbelief, "There's a possum in the washing machine."

"...what?"

"There's a possum. In the washing machine."

I walked over the cold concrete floor and peered into our open top-load washer. Sure enough, two little beady eyes peered back up at me, from the face of a mid-sized possum, a bit smaller than our cat. 

You may be wondering what any of this has to do with marketing.

I'm getting to that.

But first, panic. 

I looked at Taylor, and said, "What do we do?"
He looked back, wild-eyed, "I have no idea! What do you think we should do?"

I did what any good 21st-century woman would: I Googled "wildlife removal service near me" and started calling every single listing.
The problem was it was after 10:00 on a Saturday night, and this was Dayton, not New York City. No one answered. After what must have been my 12th voicemail, I realized no one would.

So we did what any good Millennials would do. We called our dads.

Unfortunately, our dads are both college professors who did not accrue any possum-handling skills in their respective youths. Lizard-catching in the Nevada desert? Aces! Using a miter saw? Masterful! Possum-removal guidance? Zilch. They were no help.

There I was, now 10:30 at night, barefoot and pajama-clad in my cold basement, with a live adolescent opossum in my washing machine and absolutely no one coming to help me. 

I went back to Google.
I typed "How to get an opossum out of my house," and hit enter.

Behold! A blog post by some fine young woodsy gentleman who kindly wrote, step by step, several options for getting an opossum out of one's house.

He wrote that opossums are actually very docile, and the easiest way to get them out is to grasp them near the base of the tail and carry them out. He did it all the time, he wrote, but he understood if a person not used to the animals would rather use a trap or snare pole. 

Well, I thought to myself, if he does it all the time...f*ck it, so can I.

The possum looked perfectly healthy, and was actually quite cute, but I wasn't about to take any chances with rabies, no matter how slim they were. I put on Taylor's thick, shearling-lined denim coat and my leather gardening gloves. I emptied a big Rubbermaid storage tub with a lid and handed it to Tay who was standing by the dryer at the ready. I used the broom to gently hold the possum's head down—just in case it had any ideas about snapping its head back at me—reached into the washing machine, grabbed that possum by the tail, and lifted it out.

Taylor muttered, "Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god," as I carried it over and plopped it into the bin, and we quickly put the lid on. The blogger guy was right—the dear little thing was as mellow as our cat when she was stoned on post-op pain meds, putting up as much fight as a pillow. Taylor carried the bin out to the backyard and I followed. We took off the lid and tipped the tub over towards the back of the property. I called out, "Goodnight sweetie, enjoy some yummy bugs! Stay safe!" and we went back into the house, locking the door for the night. 

So what does any of this have to do with running a business?

Let's review the most basic elements:

We had a dire, fairly immediate problem.

We had absolutely no idea what to do about it. 

We reached out to familiar resources, and they didn't help.

I found a highly-informative, well-written blog post searching online which not only gave me the tools to solve my problem but fostered an instant trust with this random dude whose name I didn't even know. 

Strip away the hilarity, and this was an incredibly powerful exchange.

If you offer any kind of service and you have a website, you can harness this power with one, single, powerhouse post. Content for content's sake is a waste of energy, and will also slowly kill your soul. One well-written piece that says exactly what your clients need to know is worth 300 filler posts cranked out only to satiate the algorithms that be.

Ask yourself:

What problem that arises at 10:00 PM on a Saturday night can you help solve?

What burning question will your peeps be desperately Googling when they are at the end of their rope?

What is your possum in the washing machine?

Because if you know what sends your ideal client into a total panic, and you can provide clear, accessible steps to help, you will have a devotee for life. 

It bears repeating, again and again, all people want to know is:

1.) Can you help me
2.) Are you available 

and

3.) Where's my coupon

And I can tell you, friends, when there's a live possum in your washing machine you do not care about the coupon.

Now get out on that internet and save some panicking peeps!

P.S.

Need some help editing or writing that solid gold problem-solving post? I'm here to help!