Go to your website. Go ahead . . . I’ll wait. . .
Who is your website about? You or your customer?
If it’s about you (and I bet it is), then the part where you tell the customer how you solve their problem – one that is particular to them and one that you can uniquely solve better than anyone else – is hidden.
Journalists call that burying the lead.
The opportunity here is not about website design. It’s about the relationship between you, your products and services and your customers. We typically lead with our products and services and hope our customers like what we offer. Our sales message often has the same logic.
And then we wonder why it always comes down to price.
Instead of starting your thought process with your products, start with the progress your customer needs to make when they interact with your offering—it’s what I call “thinking backwards.” Here is how it works:
- Focus on your most attractive market segment. The one where you get 80% of your profits.
- Ask a few customers in that segment what progress they were trying to make when they hired your product or service category. (This is not a customer service interview where you ask ‘how is our company doing?’)
- Then ask them what frustrates or annoys them when they try to make that progress.
Use what you learn to edit – and TEST (please don’t forget to test) – a new message and selling approach or a new idea to improve a product or service.
Think backwards. Lead with a promise that your customer really cares about. Then show them how you can deliver on that promise better than anyone else.
This Week:
Call two customers. Ask, “In your role as ________ what gives you the biggest headache when you try to do your job better?” Be sure to keep asking, “What else?”
If you want, send me a note by Friday about what you find out. I’ll send you my thoughts.
~Tony