Taking a walk with your customer and listening to what they have to say is a far more valuable lesson than taking a walk in their shoes.
LISTENING RATHER THAN ASSUMING
I’d made a shortlist for my next car. A choice of three. My principle dilemma? Stereotype. Just because I have 2 kids does it really mean I have to own an estate or MPV? I wanted reassurance that I could still feel young!
The hybrid car I had in mind was a blend of child carrier and fun.
The salesman would have been aware of my dilemma by asking a few simple questions.
- Why are you here? What’s behind the decision to buy a new car?
- What do you intend to do? What will you be using it for?
- What would you like to achieve? How do you want that car to make you feel?
The last is a question we’re rarely asked. It’s a little too personal. And yet, when we ask it we challenge our customer to open up. We’re more honest, more open, when we’re in company that we trust.
Buying a car? We rarely feel that trust.
That’s the job of the salesman. Not to sell the car, but to gain our trust.
When the salesman listened to me talking about the options I’d shortlisted on the forecourt his response was to ask how I was looking to finance the deal.
He wanted to test my budget.
I’d be paying cash.
‘If I was you I’d be looking at our PCP package’.
He wasn’t me. He knew nothing about me or why I was stood on that forecourt.
He wanted to sell me a financial package rather see me drive away in the car I desired.
It’s so easy to take the ‘If I was you’ approach in sales and marketing.
It’s far easier to instil our own ideas from our own worldview than to dive into the minds, not the shoes, of our potential customer.
On the forecourt, or through the content we create, the ‘If I was you’ approach is flawed.
You won’t know the individual ambitions, goals, dilemmas or pains of your customer. What you can do is listen. On the forecourt you’re trained to ask the right questions. To build trust.
Online? Your objective is to show that you care.
That’s why the smarter marketers ask you to consider and present the problems you solve rather than the products you create.
CUSTOMER-INDUCING CONTENT
The Amazon Kindle product page lets us know that:
- It reads like a book
- It goes beyond the book
- We’ll never be without a book
It’s not screentime, it’s book time.
Consider those three points.
Amazon customers love buying books. The success of the Kindle isn’t down to it’s position as an alternative to the book. It ‘goes beyond the book’.
- You can adjust the size of font.
- You can easily share your favourite quotes with friends.
- It’ll offer definitions of words you’re not sure of.
That final point is powerful. To never be without a book. One simple headline proposition that the vast majority of readers can associate with. The delayed train. The hotel room. The lounger on the beach. With the Kindle at your side, so is your bookcase.
By truly understanding the pains and desires of their customer, Amazon present a product that even the skeptics can be persuaded to purchase.
This is why context matters.
Sure, the Kindle product page draws attention to the screen resolution and technology that sits behind the product. It’s delivered in a way that answers all the key questions in headline format. You can skim the page and learn all the things that you need to know about the Kindle.
If you want to dig deep you can, but the emphasis of the page is to focus on what really matters to the Kindle customer.
Amazon have listened. They’ve delivered a response, not to the key features of their product, but to the key concerns of their customer.
NEXT STEP
I could have easily driven a new car off the salesman’s forecourt. He assumed my problems were his problems. He was looking at ways to justify the price-tag in his head, not mine.
It’s very easy to jump to assumptions about what matters to our customers. The easiest method is to focus on what matters to us.
Consider the sales process on your own website. Are you focusing your efforts on the obvious pain points or none at all? Do you ask the key questions, present the key insight, that builds trust within your potential customers?
It’s trust that leads us to click the ‘contact us’ button, to fill out the form, or to pick up the phone. Answer the key questions to build that trust.
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