Understand your customer

- You think you know what your customer wants, but I bet my beloved golden retriever named Steve, yes, I have a dog named Steve, that you actually have no idea. How do I know? Because I see my clients do this all the time. They love what they sell and they know why their product or service is great, so they tailor every message from their own frame of reference. But here's the dirty little secret of sales that no one wants to tell you. Knowing why you love what you sell does not matter at all. Knowing why your customer will love what you sell does. I'm going to open your eyes to one three letter word that will transform how you look at your customers, how you tailor your sales message to them, and how well you close business. And it's this, ask, yep, A-S-K. We spend so much time in expert mode, puffing out our chests with what we know, spouting off facts about our market, and sharing past client success stories, that it's easy for us to forget that it's not really about us at all. Because we know our product or service inside and out, we have something I like to call the curse of knowledge. The depth and the breadth of our knowledge can serve as a barrier to what is truly most important. Knowing our customers and having a solid understanding of what it is they are struggling with. And while we think we know, we actually have no idea until we ask. And remember, I am so confident with this statement that I am putting my sweet Stevie on the line. You can ask in so many different ways, polls or question boxes on social media stories, good old fashioned survey sent out via email, person-to-person meetings, or even on discovery calls conducted on Zoom. But where you ask is not nearly as important as what you ask, because not all questions are created equal. Remember, you're not looking for demographic info here. Things like where they live, what their educational level is, or what they're reading. You want to go deeper to get to the bottom of what emotional, psychological, and financial pain points they have, because then you're going to create sales content that positions your product or service as the answer. Ask questions like, "What's the hardest part about X?" And, "If there was a dream solution for Y, "what would that look like for you?" Or even, "When you think about Z, "what worries you the most?" The goal here is to know the customer on a very personal level, and to truly understand what keeps them up at night. Because when you do that, you can weave the words they give you into your sales conversations to illustrate that not only are you an expert, but you get it. And when your customer feels that you get it, you get them, and they buy. It's as simple as that. So next time you find yourself searching for what to say to a potential customer, remember the three letter magical word, ask. Ask open-ended questions and then close your mouth and listen. Trust me, it works, because if it didn't, I'd be missing my favorite golden retriever and you'd be stuck with a pet named Steve.