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Hello Sales Babblers, today in preparation for the New 2015 Year, we’re going to walk through the process of understanding your ideal client. This is especially useful if you have a new product or service or if you’re new to this marketplace.

The best way to discover what makes your customer tick is to ask them. Using market research techniques to “study the market” sounds intimidating and often skipped. But in reality, it’s not as hard as it sounds. Let me prove it.

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Call Your Ideal Client

By making a few brief cold calls, you can quickly collect the thoughts of prospective clients. When done, you’ll have a cost effective way of obtaining their daily conversations and the actual words they use. This language can be leveraged for marketing materials, emails, cold calls, websites, customer support language and actual product enhancements. Your ability to communicate clearly will be greatly enhanced. And, there’s no end to the good things can do with this information. Let’s get started!

Market Research is generally focused one of two questions:

1. What does my ideal client need?
2. Would my ideal client buy this  a product or service if given a chance?

These are powerful questions. Companies have withered and died because they failed to ask one or both of these questions. Most likely your competition has not been this self-reflecting. They assume their products and service have value. They may not!  Don’t make the same mistake. Ask.

Using social media and the search tools of the day, create a list of names and phone numbers in your market niche. The next thing we’re going to do is call them and ask them a set of questions. These calls are easy because they ONE give you a great reason to call (which always makes it easier to cold call) and secondly you’re not trying to sell them anything. You’re simply calling to gather data.

The frame work of the call is something like this…

Hi Mr. Johnson

This is Pat Helmers from Sales Babble and I’m doing a research study on The Left Handed WIdget Industry. My company is just starting a new business venture and we’re looking to understand what products and services would provide the greatest value to your industry

What is your (or your business’s) goal?

What is your biggest challenge?

What would it take to overcome those challenges?

What would it mean for your business to overcome those challenges?

Listen to their answers carefully. Take great notes making sure to capture their exact words. After they answer each of the above questions, follow up with the question:

What else?

Keep repeating this question over and over. You will often get better and richer answers because you asked “what else”. Repeat until they have no more to say.

Avatar Research

They will ask about your company. Tell them. Be clear you’re not trying to sell them anything. Be up front you’re considering rolling out new products and services. You want to make sure that there’s a market before you do the work. Be clear you respect their experience and industry perspective. Any help or guidance would be deeply appreciated.

You’re asking them for a favor! Surprisingly, many people are more than happy to help. They’ll be intrigued because your questions viscerally address their current pains and desires. People want to vent. Let them.

If you’re doing these interviews of the phone warm up so you sound your best. Do the following:

1. Read the script 10 times out loud.
2. Get comfortable with the words, anticipate them before you say them.
3. Stand up! When standing you project a more confident sound in your voice.
4. Smile. Your smiling can actually be heard by the listener. Ooze positivity.

These four steps may sound silly and fake, but it works. People will be more receptive to your questions. Don’t dilly-dally when you make these calls. Get right to the questions. If it’s a topic they care about, people are surprisingly helpful.

If the person you speak to isn’t the expert about the subject (they could be a secretary or receptionist) you will need to talk to somebody else. Kindly ask if they will forward your call to that person. If forwarding the call’s not possible, ask for the person’s name and phone number.

Once you reach the expert, they may ask how the survey long will take. Tell them you have 4 questions and no more. If it’s interesting for them it won’t matter how long it takes. You may actually find it hard to get them off the phone! You will be surprised by the generosity of people. It’s cathartic to a degree for the interviewees. It’s not often they get to talk to someone who is genuinely interested in the challenges of their lives.
Repeat this process for six or more businesses. Then analyze the results by finding common themes. From the data you’ve collected find the common challenges that seem ripe for a new product or service. Now you’ve got a great start on a potential new business. Congratulations!

Like snakes and public speaking, many people fear calling strangers on the phone. Instead of seeing yourself as a pushy salesman, consider adopting the mindset of a research scientist.

Consider yourself a research scientist with white lab coat and clip board. Your subject is across the table and you have a number of questions you want them to answer. Since you’re a scientist, you have no expectation on how they answer. You’re genuinely curious and open to anything they say. You don’t want to sway the conversation in one direction or another. You want an honest answer. You keep your biases to yourself. You write down exactly what they say.

You can be the keen observer, be the scientist with the clipboard. Be fearless and learn about how the marketplace will treat your products and services. As they say, with knowledge comes power.

Resources

Since we’re starting a new year it’s a great time to see if what you’re going to be selling is going to work. Or maybe you’re in a situation where what you’re doing is not working, and you want to know why. Doing an non-biased analysis of your ideal client avatar can be one of the best investments you can make this coming year.

Download the Discover Your Customer Workbook here.

Thanks again for listening to Sales Babble this year, I look forward to sharing many more great interviews next year. Take care and Happy New Year.