One of the most common mistakes that business owners make is to assume that their customers are just like them. They project their own preferences, opinions and values onto their target market, and end up creating products or services that appeal to themselves, but not to their potential buyers.
This can lead to a lot of wasted time, money and effort, as well as missed opportunities and lost sales. If you want to succeed in selling, you need to understand your customers’ needs, wants, problems and motivations. You need to put yourself in their shoes and see things from their perspective.
⇒ One way to do this is to conduct market research: You can use surveys, interviews, focus groups, online reviews, social media comments and other methods to gather feedback from your existing and potential customers.
You can also use tools like customer personas, empathy maps and value proposition canvases to create a clear picture of who your customers are, what they care about and how you can help them.
⇒ Another way to do this is to observe your customers’ behavior: You can use analytics, tracking, testing and other methods to measure how your customers interact with your website, products or services.
You can also use techniques like customer journey mapping, user testing and feedback loops to identify the pain points, emotions and actions that your customers experience throughout their buying process.
By doing these things, you will be able to create products or services that match your customers’ needs and expectations.
You will be able to communicate with them in a way that resonates with them and persuades them to buy. You will be able to build trust and loyalty with them and turn them into repeat customers and advocates.
A good example of this is the cigarette industry. Many of the top sales people in cigarette companies are non-smokers. They don’t share the same habits, beliefs or values as their customers.
But they understand what drives their customers to smoke, what benefits they get from smoking and what challenges they face when trying to quit. They use this knowledge to create effective marketing campaigns that appeal to their customers’ emotions and desires.
So, if you want to sell more, don’t make the mistake of thinking that your customers are like you.
Find out what they think and want; not what you think and want. And then create products or services that solve their problems and fulfill their needs.
