How to know your customers even better than they know themselves.
As a marketer and business person, the more you know about your customers, the more you can maximize your profits. In fact, your ultimate goal should be to know your customers even better than they know themselves.
You see, people often buy for unconscious reasons they themselves don't recognize. They aren't always aware of what they're really after in your marketplace, or what's driving them to buy a particular product or service. It's an emotional thing, and most people are out of touch with their emotions. The more you think about who your very best customers are and the main benefits they're seeking, the more you'll understand them from that subconscious standpoint. While it may be an unconscious process for them, it has to be a conscious one for you.
Start by writing down a list of the things your best customers are looking for. Focus on who they are, and try to get to know them better. One of the ways I've done that is by holding regular seminars and workshops for our customers, some of them free. My company has been doing this since 1990.
Now, let's be honest: the main reason we held that first seminar and the hundreds since was because we wanted to make more money. At first, we weren't thinking about anything else. Our perspective has changed radically since then, because we've gained so much value just from the act of getting to know our customers better. We spend a great deal of time every year face-to-face, belly-to-belly, eyeball-to-eyeball with them-and that's helped us more than we can measure.
Nowadays, we intimately know what our customers are looking for, what's most important to them, and what to say to them-and they don't realize it. When they come to our seminars, they don't see that our questions are designed so we can to get to know them even better, for our mutual benefit. We ask them what they're buying at the moment, and who they're buying from-all in an informal way, like we're just curious.
But we're taking mental notes that we later transfer to paper. Our staff brainstorms constantly on the information our best customers have provided about the kinds of things they're buying the most from our competitors. We're constantly asking ourselves, "What do they want that they're not getting?" We've learned that if you expect to get more people to give you more money right now, you have to intimately understand who your best customers are, and what they want the most.
If you really want to maximize your profits, devote plenty of time to thinking this through. I suggest that you get up an hour early each day, like I do, and start trying to get inside the heads of your best customers. Forget all the rest. A deep understanding of your best customers is where your true power lies as a marketer. Ask yourself, "What's the #1 reason why my best customers are buying from me right now?" Then make a list of all the ideas that pop into your head. Write as fast as you can, and follow it up with other pertinent questions, like:
The better you understand all that, the more power you'll have to attract other people just like them. Realize that your first answers to these questions won't always be the right answers, but they'll lead you to better answers. Sometimes it takes months, even years, of thinking this through on a regular basis before you understand your customers better than they understand themselves. But don't worry! You can still earn as you learn.
Once you do start getting good answers to your questions, explore deeper. Another good question to ask might be, "What are they not getting from me and my competitors?" Here's the best question of this type I've ever heard; it's a fun question for brainstorming, and it goes like this. "In a perfect world, if I had god-like superpowers and I could give my customers anything they wanted, what would it be?"
Ask yourself that, then start writing down all kinds of goofy ideas. It's a crazy question to start with, so the answers you come up with are going to be crazy, too. Yet they'll help you think things through, so you can then find or develop products and services that come as close as possible to giving people the main benefits on your list.
Make it fun. Keep thinking this through at a deep level. This exercise serves you well, because the more you can do to understand your customers, the more power you'll have to get more people to give you more money. Those people will include the best customers you have now, but you'll also end up attracting new customers similar to them-and your profits will increase dramatically.
You see, people often buy for unconscious reasons they themselves don't recognize. They aren't always aware of what they're really after in your marketplace, or what's driving them to buy a particular product or service. It's an emotional thing, and most people are out of touch with their emotions. The more you think about who your very best customers are and the main benefits they're seeking, the more you'll understand them from that subconscious standpoint. While it may be an unconscious process for them, it has to be a conscious one for you.
Start by writing down a list of the things your best customers are looking for. Focus on who they are, and try to get to know them better. One of the ways I've done that is by holding regular seminars and workshops for our customers, some of them free. My company has been doing this since 1990.
Now, let's be honest: the main reason we held that first seminar and the hundreds since was because we wanted to make more money. At first, we weren't thinking about anything else. Our perspective has changed radically since then, because we've gained so much value just from the act of getting to know our customers better. We spend a great deal of time every year face-to-face, belly-to-belly, eyeball-to-eyeball with them-and that's helped us more than we can measure.
Nowadays, we intimately know what our customers are looking for, what's most important to them, and what to say to them-and they don't realize it. When they come to our seminars, they don't see that our questions are designed so we can to get to know them even better, for our mutual benefit. We ask them what they're buying at the moment, and who they're buying from-all in an informal way, like we're just curious.
But we're taking mental notes that we later transfer to paper. Our staff brainstorms constantly on the information our best customers have provided about the kinds of things they're buying the most from our competitors. We're constantly asking ourselves, "What do they want that they're not getting?" We've learned that if you expect to get more people to give you more money right now, you have to intimately understand who your best customers are, and what they want the most.
If you really want to maximize your profits, devote plenty of time to thinking this through. I suggest that you get up an hour early each day, like I do, and start trying to get inside the heads of your best customers. Forget all the rest. A deep understanding of your best customers is where your true power lies as a marketer. Ask yourself, "What's the #1 reason why my best customers are buying from me right now?" Then make a list of all the ideas that pop into your head. Write as fast as you can, and follow it up with other pertinent questions, like:
- What are they searching for the most?
- Why are they really buying what they're buying?
- What's the #1 benefit they receive by giving me their money?
- What makes them excited about what they buy from my competitors?
The better you understand all that, the more power you'll have to attract other people just like them. Realize that your first answers to these questions won't always be the right answers, but they'll lead you to better answers. Sometimes it takes months, even years, of thinking this through on a regular basis before you understand your customers better than they understand themselves. But don't worry! You can still earn as you learn.
Once you do start getting good answers to your questions, explore deeper. Another good question to ask might be, "What are they not getting from me and my competitors?" Here's the best question of this type I've ever heard; it's a fun question for brainstorming, and it goes like this. "In a perfect world, if I had god-like superpowers and I could give my customers anything they wanted, what would it be?"
Ask yourself that, then start writing down all kinds of goofy ideas. It's a crazy question to start with, so the answers you come up with are going to be crazy, too. Yet they'll help you think things through, so you can then find or develop products and services that come as close as possible to giving people the main benefits on your list.
Make it fun. Keep thinking this through at a deep level. This exercise serves you well, because the more you can do to understand your customers, the more power you'll have to get more people to give you more money. Those people will include the best customers you have now, but you'll also end up attracting new customers similar to them-and your profits will increase dramatically.
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