Do you really sell what customers want to buy?

Unclear? Then, let's start with a story that perfectly illustrates what I mean. The story is quite short, but it has quite a lot of meaning.

Once a professor stood in front of an audience, holding a shovel in his hand. Suppose it was a marketing teacher at one of the institutes. And he told the class that today their task would be to write an advertisement for the sale of a shovel.

A couple of students worked hard trying to describe what a wonderful subject is a shovel. They wrote about her comfortable pen, about the sharpest forged blade, about incredible lightness, and other praises.

After seeing half of the practically identical works, the professor said: “Let me tell you the secret of selling this shovel. And the secret, in fact, is that no one buys a shovel, just because they want a shovel. A customer buys because he needs a pit. ”

No matter what we sell, we need to understand what lies behind this purchase. The client does not buy our products and services, he buys something final, which can give this product or service. And if we miss it, we risk losing the client, because we could not satisfy his need.

How to understand what is the ultimate goal of buying our product?

To help answer this question will allow three simple methods. Here about them and the further story.

Better to ask than to live in ignorance. But it’s not easy to ask a question from a standard questionnaire, but to develop a short list of questions that will initiate a conversation about a real need. Ask questions and listen carefully to the answers to them, and these questions should be enough to truly understand the root of the client's problem.

Outsourcing for feedback even if you have build custom bespoke cms revglue.com/bespoke. Very often the customer is not frank with us, answering our questions. However, when we hire a third-party firm, the results sometimes shock us. In this case, every time we learn from our mistakes, honing the skill that allows us to sell more and more.

Observation in the natural environment. There are two points:

We observe the client during the use of our product. Yes, maybe he doesn’t dig a hole with a shovel, but chokes wood (there are all kinds of individuals). This method sometimes gives very unpredictable results, which the seller did not even think about.

The second point is typical for retail. Supervision is conducted in the retail hall. How does the customer choose? What questions does it ask? How does our product associate with itself? You can also make a lot of interesting conclusions.

Reader, let's not fool ourselves, thinking that we know what the buyer really wants. Finding the exact answer is a tremendous job, but it will allow you to earn customer loyalty for many, many years. So why not spend your time on it? That was such a story.