Every business needs to understand what its value is rom their customers’ point of view. Seeing your work and your business through the eyes of your customer has become more crucial as marketing has become more data driven. It might feel good to be Liked, Followed or Shared, but if those data points aren’t turning into sales, who cares? A better way to turn prospects into customers is to get inside their heads.
There are many ways to suss your market out, such as conducting surveys and focus groups. Another approach to this is to role play your customers to try to see your products or services from their perspective.
This is challenging when you’re immersed in the day-to-day details of running a business, but well worth the effort. In customer mode, you’ll be able to see your business strategy more clearly. Putting yourself in your customer’s shoes will help identify problems and build on your strengths.
Start by asking an associate who knows you and your business well to imagine they are a new business prospect. Tell them the characteristics of your favorite customers and ask them to pretend they are that person. Then have a conversation where you describe the benefits of your service/product as you would to a prospect who has never heard of you before, and see what kind of response you get. Then switch roles and do it again. You may be in for some surprises.
Understanding how people experience your enterprise is a matter of business surviving and thriving. Since it’s hard to notice what’s constantly around us, we need to cultivate fresh eyes and ears to understand how our customers perceive our product or service. It’s a free source of important information.
Role playing is a way to get out of our heads, which will also make it easier to evaluate customer data from other sources. Understanding what your customers want from their perspective is key to building a valuable business, so when you are in marketing mode, put yourself on the other side of the table and see your business from that point of view. If you need a partner to role play with you, give me a shout and we’ll dive in.