Seeing through your customer’s eyes

You have a great idea. You turned it into a product. It’s going to solve all kinds of problems. The company you work for is great (lucky you). You see it and you want everyone else to see it too.

You want to make sure people know that you have the coolest thing around, so:
• You write a white paper that tells all about your product and its features.
• You write a case study on who bought your product and how they’re using it.
• You write a blog post letting your readers know what a visionary you or your company is
• You produce a Webinar that demos all the features of your product.

It’s natural. When you’re passionate and proud of something, you want to tell the world. But guess what? The world has their own things they care about and you now have to do something that can be very difficult—step into your customer’s shoes and see the world through their eyes.

Your customers live in a world with competing priorities, differing opinions, and tight budgets, yet are being asked to find answers to real business problems. Can you repeat the business problems your customers are dealing with – in their own words? Do you know the constraints they’re up against?

Beneath the business needs that your product may address, you also need to speak to the personal needs of your buyer. Yes, you’re selling to a real person who has his own personal agenda. Make sure you consider these personal needs as well:

• Make my company money
• Save my company money
• Stay employed by making the best decision
• Stay out of jail (compliance)
• Make me successful

The successful vendor or marketer will be the one who knows how to marry the product benefits with real world needs and do so in a way that shows the customer you understand his challenges. It’s the basic solution-based selling over product sales. Most vendors are doing this now, but we all need that reminder to take another look at our messages and make sure it’s all about the customer, not all about me.