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Developing A Survey — 50 Reasons To Love You!

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SIMPLE SALES SERIES

Tell Me Why, Why, Why

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Ever wonder why someone is your friend? Ever think about what you have to offer? Do you just sail along wondering, or do you ask? Asking isn’t easy.

Maybe with friends it’s okay to take it on faith that we have that special “something,” that indescrible “who knows what” that gets our friends to keep coming around. But it sure doesn’t work in business.

When it comes to business, we need to understand what our customers think about us. It’s not an option in business. It’s not a “good thing to know.” It’s survival.

Knowing why our customers love us is the only way to attract more customers and grow. One great way to find out might be to send out a survey. Use the following traits to set up your own survey of traits you think are important to them and your business.

Developing A Survey– 50 Reasons To Love You!

Be sure to handwrite the opening sentences to make each request personal if you possibly can.

Hi, ______
I’d really like to know how think about (my/our) work. Could you take a minute to help us out? For each trait below would you write a letter rating? Feel free to cross out those you think don’t apply at all. Thanks!

The ratings are:

  • L= Love how you’re doing. Keep it up!
  • N = Not so in love. Could you try harder?
  • W = Would you work on this one? It would do us both a favor.

The Traits
Here’s how I rate working with you for the way you:

  1. move toward action
  2. adapt
  3. analyze
  4. define boundaries
  5. collaborate
  6. communicate important information verbally
  7. communicate important information in writing
  8. conceptualize
  9. connect
  10. see context
  11. are deliberate
  12. demonstrate
  13. describe
  14. design
  15. handle details
  16. develop an idea
  17. discipline
  18. empathize
  19. enjoy working
  20. explain
  21. are fair
  22. focus
  23. interact with ideas
  24. inform
  25. innovate
  26. use interpersonal skills
  27. learn
  28. manage meetings
  29. manage time
  30. manage teams
  31. manage projects
  32. market to my customers
  33. organize information
  34. organize processes
  35. have positivity
  36. are present
  37. prioritize across levels and processes
  38. problem solve
  39. productive
  40. question
  41. are responsible
  42. are rational
  43. respond
  44. research
  45. sell/persuade
  46. teach
  47. translate/interpret
  48. strategize
  49. use story
  50. have vision

Thank you for taking the time to tell me what you think. I’m listening.

Do personally sign each one.

Fifty reasons customers might love you and 50 ways to love your customers — how many have you already mastered? Could it be more than you expect?

Got more to add to the list?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Is your business stuck? Check out the Start-up Strategy Package. Work with Liz!!

Related
To follow the entire series: Liz Strauss’ Inside-Out Thinking to Building a Solid Business, see the Successful Series Page.

10 Expert Strategies for Finding Customer Needs

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SIMPLE SALES SERIES

Customers Are the Only Ones Who Count

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Yesterday I wrote a recipe for a product offering that sells. Of course, it really was about paying attention to customers — customers are the only ones who count.

Before we leave the topic, I did some research to offer you the points of view from some experts on the subject.

10 Expert Strategies for Finding Customer Needs

Read to find out how to listen to your customers and how to know when they are right.

  1. pdf 6 Customer Expectations.
    a most readable pdf with solid explanations of how customers think.

  2. video Asking Customers What They Think Has Long-Term Benefits
    The benefits of asking

  3. A Customer Feedback Tip – Are You Asking The Right Questions?
    Well-written article on making sure we know what we’re asking

  4. To Charge Up Customers, Put Customers in Charge
    Uses the great example of Threadless.com an online business.

  5. Create Successful Products by ‘Getting in the Van’
    The benefits of going to where the customers are

  6. Customer Satisfaction Tips Links to 18 articles on the subject of finding out what customers think

  7. Finding Hot Selling Products to Sell
    The basics of supply and demand

  8. Successful products through observation
    Why simply watching ourselves and our customers is valid too.

  9. Tips for e-mail marketing in a spam-filled world
    Once you have a list of customers hw you might use it to ask them what they think.

  10. How to Find High-Demand Products That Sell Like Hotcakes
    Some nontraditional places to research online

Now take a look at the products you own. What thinking made you buy them?

How will that help you decide what you offer?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Check out the Work with Liz!! page in the sidebar.

Related
10 More Outstanding Links that Answer “What DO You Do for a Living?”
20 Outstanding Links to Answer “What Do You Do?”
Three Steps to a Killer Tagline that Customers Pass On
Strategy: 40 Outstanding Blog Links, Bookmark Carefully!
20 Blog Promotion Guides to Inform Your Strategy

The Recipe for a Product Offering that Will Sell

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SIMPLE SALES SERIES

It’s No Good if It Doesn’t Sell

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We don’t decide what is a great product or service. Customers and clients do. If we what we do well is what our customers value, it will sell. In my publishing job, I said this over and over . . .

It’s not a good book, if it doesn’t sell — at a profit.

Customers decide whether our offer is better than any alternative. They let us know by how they vote with their money. Our job is to make an offer they find attractive, knowing full well that we cannot coax or coerce them to behave.

The Recipe for a Product Offering that Sells

While I was publishing, I spent a great deal of time talking to customers who used my products and to customers who did not.

Most marketers would recommend that you find out how folks are using your “stuff,” what they like, what they don’t, what they wish for, and what other “stuff” they like just as much or better. They would suggest that you especially find out why folks who aren’t using your “stuff,” aren’t using it. I did all that — but only about 10% of the time.

The other 90% of the time we talked about THEM, not about my “stuff.”

That’s how I got to my recipe for a product that sells. It’s the recipe I used when driving the strategy of the company we turned around.

  1. Talk to your ideal customers about
    • what wish they had more time to do.
    • what they wish they could learn.
    • what they wish someone would invent.
    • what problem they would love to get off their mind or off their desks.

    Listen actively to understand the outcome they prize. Find the patterns in what they say.

  2. Build a product or service that does one thing well — in less time. If you bundle more than one need, do it carefully. Less is more. Simple is elegant.

  3. Design the product or service to match customers’ sensibilities. Make it beautiful and functional, and a reflection of what they value. Adding “quality” they can’t see or don’t want is adding cost they don’t want.

  4. Price the offer at what the work is worth — what you need to make a profit and what it saves the customer.

  5. Test what you plan by asking customers who know you, who don’t know you, and who are notoriously on the opposite side of the fence.

Every bit of the development is about how the features of the product or service benefits the customer. Add to “How are WE doing?” the additional question “What drives YOU crazy?”

How do you find customer needs customers that aren’t being met? Are you your own customer? How might you use that in your favor?

I’m really interested in informal ways we get customers to talk about their experiences.

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Is your business stuck? Check out the Start-up Strategy Package. Work with Liz!!

Related
To follow the entire series: Liz Strauss’ Inside-Out Thinking to Building a Solid Business, see the Successful Series Page.

10 More Outstanding Links that Answer “What DO You Do for a Living?”

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SIMPLE SALES SERIES

Some of the Best Answers

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One of my favorite answers to the question “What do you do for a living has always been, “I’m an assistant notary public,” since there is no such job. But I answered it seriously here.

Before we leave the topic of how to answer the “What do you do? question. I am offering a few more links to some other wonderful sources. Some are less serious than others. All are worth a quick look.

Outstanding Links that Answer “What DO You Do for a Living?”

  1. “So, what do you do for a living?” Some fun answers

  2. pdf http://www.whywork.org/about/faq/question.html a pdf study

  3. How do you introduce yourself? Ways to make a good first impression when answering the question

  4. What Exactly Do You Do for a Living? How to get more specific

  5. So, What Do You Do For a Living? The difficulties of explaining a rare job description

  6. What Do You Do For a Living? | Duct Tape Marketing Blog A fabulous example of how to do it well

  7. Answer this question: What do you do for a living? » Leadership … Why it’s important

  8. What do you do for a living? Sometimes just hearing other folks answer helps us have an idea of what to do.

  9. What Do You Do For A Living? Are you talking about the most important part of your business?

  10. Cuis-Zine Quizzing Blending your work life and your real life together

Now that you can say what you do for a living.

Can you say what you do for a life?

–ME :Liz” Strauss
Check out the Work with Liz!! page in the sidebar.

Related
20 Outstanding Links to Answer “What Do You Do?”
3.2: Three Steps to a Killer Tagline that Customers Pass On
Strategy: 40 Outstanding Blog Links, Bookmark Carefully!
20 Blog Promotion Guides to Inform Your Strategy
Strategy: How to Get Maximum Benefit from Complex Link Lists

1 Word, 1 Sentence, As Many Words as You Need Test

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SIMPLE SALES SERIES

Still The Decision Model

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Chris Garrett and I had a conversation yesterday morning. We discussed the difference between the way we see our blogs and the way our readers see them. That got us talking about testimonials.

Testimonials are more than meet the eye. They tell us what customers value . . . what we do for them.

Chris and I talked about using surveys to focus a businesses. We agreed that the key is to listen carefully. Read every word that is said. Look deep in the text for the hidden testimonials.

One goal of great survey is to gather what customers say and use it to promote our businesses.

But don’t stop there.

Look closely at what the testimonials say — testimonials often reveal what we don’t know about ourselves and how people see our work.

That’s what Chris and I were talking about . . .

The 1 Word, 1 Sentence, As Many Words as You Need Test

Other people see what we do in ways that often surprise us. Try this test about your own work then pass it on to a friend. Here’s how it works.

Do a favor. Write a testimonial for someone’s blog — in this case would you do mine, please? (Write your answers in the comment box.)

1. Describe my blog in one word. _______.

2. Describe my blog in one sentence. _______________________________. < 3. Describe my blog in as many words as you need. _____________________ ________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________ Now write a testimonial for your business or blog. Write your answers in the comment box too, if you are ready to. 1. Describe your blog or business in one word. _______. 2. Describe your blog or business in one sentence. _____________________. 3. Describe your blog or business in as many words as you need. _________ ________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________ What do you think other people will see in you? Make a prediction. Now print out this page and do it a few more times. Each time as another friend to do it with you. Compare each new person's testimonial to the one that you wrote. Write a new each time, you'll find you'll get closer to your message if you do. Pay attention to what bits your friend calls out. When you have finished the exercise, check to see how close your prediction was. You might be surprised what you learn about yourself. --ME "Liz" Strauss Is your business stuck? Check out the Start-up Strategy Package. Work with Liz!!

Related
To follow the entire series: Liz Strauss’ Inside-Out Thinking to Building a Solid Business, see the Successful Series Page.

How to Answer the Only Customer Questions that Count

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Still The Decision Model

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Used well, this four-point definition/decision model can make your business thinking solid, swifter, and more customer-centered.

  • An explicit description of our customer and the niche market he or she represents
  • A company name and identity that fits and appeals to that ideal customer
  • A tagline that states what we promise and deliver
  • A “do line” that answers “What do you do?” in a few words

The goal of the four-part definition is the deep thinking. That’s the only way to stand on solid ground when the tough questions come. By thinking through and answering the four parts of the decision model, we’re writing the unique and compelling story of the business. .

How to Answer the Only Customer Questions that Count

The compelling story — the four-point definition — is important because it answers the only two questions customers care about when choose who to hire.

Key Question 1: What problem do you solve? (Can you, will you, do the job?)

Key Question 2: What is your unique value? (What do you cost? What are your benefits per buck?)

The two key questions are it. This is just one way the fou-point definition/decision model streamlines our business thinking. More on that laters . . .

Use the Two Key Questions

Now picture me back at that party where someone has asked, “What do you do?” I might answer this way, using the two key questions to guide my reply.


Answer to Key Question 1: I help businesses turn strangers into customer-friends who are fiercely loyal.
Answer to Key Question 2: I have a knack at seeing what businesses do in the way a naive, intelligent customer does. I show clients how they might fix any disconnects in their strategy and relationships.

When it’s you, be sure to answer the two key questions. Then STOP.

Let your audience have a chance to take in what you said. You’ll most likely hear your audience say it back to you in some way. Of course, it’s more meaningful when they talk about it themselves. Even their questions work in your favor.

Explian the problem you solve. Tell why you’re uniquely qualified. Then listen. When I do that I often hear someone tell me why I’m the right person to solve a problem.

Can you stand to hear a potential customer thinking, then talking, about how you might be the right person for a job?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Is your business stuck? Check out the Start-up Strategy Package. Work with Liz!!

Related
To follow the entire series: Liz Strauss’ Inside-Out Thinking to Building a Solid Business, see the Successful Series Page.