A few days ago, I watched an old movie and it got me thinking…. Do I need a blow dryer to better understand my clients?
To give you a little background history, the movie I watched is called “What Women Want” with Mel Gibson and Helen Hunt. It’s an old movie but I’m sure some of you have seen it, if not, I highly recommend that you do because there is a lesson not to be missed in it.
In the story, Nick Marshall (Mel Gibson) is a Marketing Manager (or something similar) and a “womanizer”. He is under the impression that he is up for promotion to the position of Head of the Creative Marketing department. To his surprise, on the day of his “assumed” promotion, he realizes that the company have decided to hire a woman instead, Darcy (Helen Hunt). The company understood that the market was evolving, that they needed to address women’s needs at that time, so it was right to hire a woman to handle the challenge.
Puzzled and upset, that same evening, after trying on panties and applying red nail polish (you’ll have to watch the movie to know why….) he falls into the bath tub, with a blow dryer in his hand!
The next morning, he was not alone in his head…..he could “hear every woman’s thoughts”.
What appeared as a nightmare at first, soon became an advantage as he started to put his new gift to good use to get the promotion he wanted.
In order to get the position, he had to prove that he could understand women, their needs, their desires, their aspirations to win a campaign for a big client.
How difficult can it be when you hear what your clients think! Now, I don’t recommend that you jump into your bath tub with a blow dryer in your hand…..! There is another way, hang on in there!
To be able to offer your program to your potential clients, you first need to understand their needs so how do you do that if you can’t read their minds?
You ask them!
Yes, quite simple and so effective. How do you ask them? Here are a few tried and tested approaches that really work for me:
- Don’t waste a minute. Turn on your radar. Whenever I wait in line at the grocery store, in my doctor’s waiting room….I listen! I listen and I am on the lookout for any ideas, little gems, that could come my way. Most people talk about their problems so that makes this one easy for you.
- I pay careful attention to what my existing clients are saying to me. (It’s always easier and less expensive to sell to an existing client than to get a new one). Then I fine tune my understanding with them, so I can come up with very specific, streamlined offers.
- I read what people are writing on colleagues’ blogs, Facebook pages, I hear their pain and try to see if there is something that could spark a specific offer.
- I ASK my potential clients (list). Many tools now exist that you can use to facilitate the process. Set up an online survey (www.surveygizmo.com), keep it short so it doesn’t take 2 hours to fill out. To make it worthwhile, you can offer a new audio or a new report to thank them.
How do you get to “hear” what your clients want, I’d love to know…share your ideas in the Comment section.
