NOW Is the Time to Check In!
Your Customer’s Point of View

by Michele Lando, August 2009

Over the past 20+ years, I have found that clients struggle with messaging—be it their Unique Value Proposition (UVP), their elevator pitch, their corporate mission, their benefits (as in Features and Benefits) and now what to write about in a company blog.

The universal law to aid you in this process is based on the idiom, “Walk a mile in my shoes.” The reason most companies, executives, sales professionals, and entrepreneurs, struggle is because they are thinking from their point of view. The perspective you want to take is that of your customer. What do they care about? (And by the way, this is an excellent time to revisit this thinking because today everyone’s customer is changing—our customers have access to and are challenged by all the same things you and I are, including volumes of information online, experiencing difficulty reaching people through voice mail, they are operating at an unprecedented pace, the economy is causing them and their customers to reconsider, and on and on). Your product and service may still be relevant to them. They may, for example, still want quality, service and price, but in this economy, perhaps not necessarily in that order.

You’ll want to start by re-engaging with your audience(s). What do they care about—NOW! What’s on their mind? What is keeping them up at night? What is of primary interest, focus and concern to them. What is it you might shift in your offer that would make them buy now, buy more, continue to buy? Do you know? When’s the last time you checked in with them? Do you have a marketing / sales plan that allows for structured re-engagement? Engagement can take place formally in a number of different ways, such as online surveys, focus groups, tele-surveys or more informally through field sales engagements, over lunch dates, during customer care calls, or through social media vehicles. (Keep in mind you will likely hear more accurate truths when engaging through a neutral/safe third party where anonymity is guaranteed).

Written by: Michele Lando, president of Skilset Communications, Inc., and author of the internationally acclaimed IndiBrand™ Individual Branding workshop series. To reproduce any portion of this article, you may write or phone 626-792-0032.

Once you understand the concerns of your target market, you can take your authentic gifts, talents and offers and begin to package them in a form that resonates with their care-abouts specifically. For example, while working with Cisco, we were able to research and identify anywhere from two to five current care-abouts unique to each distinct buyer profile within the government and education vertical sectors. We were then able to craft voicemail messages, presentations, case studies, etc. that would address those key areas of concern—from their point of view.

We often struggle to tell our story because we don’t think in terms of what our clients and customers are thinking. We also struggle to tell the story in a way that resonates with them and in a way that they recall, because in addition to not coming from their perspective, we also tend to speak in features and benefits rather than story. It’s up to you to be memorable. Stories have a beginning, a middle, and an end. They are a medium we grow up with. They make it possible for us to be remembered and for others to pass our story along. So if we are looking to get referrals, for example, it’s incumbent upon us to help them remember us and refer us to the right buyer.

In my public speaking engagements, I often illustrate this point by saying, "remember these five words: Bugle, Monkey, Tree, Skateboard and Ship. I’ll come back to them in a moment." I continue talking and then take a pause in a couple of moments to ask who recalls the words. As the room struggles, I continue by sharing a story: "There is a cruise Ship that drops port at this remote island inhabited only by Monkeys. One day, one of the kids aboard the ship brought their Skateboard with them to the island and left it there. The monkeys found it and loved playing with it. Every day, one of the monkeys would climb up a Tree to see if another Ship was coming; if he saw one, he sounded a Bugle so the other monkeys could safely hide the skateboard." Then I repeat to the room, "Who remembers the five words now?" Everyone is able to recount the words because the words mean something—they are in the context of a story.

So, what is your story?  And how does it address the concerns of your target audience—from their point of view?

For additional questions to consider when re-engaging with your client, click here.