Give ‘Em the Want

This week we continue to examine the three key fundamentals to a successful kingdom minded business.

This week we continue to examine the three key fundamentals to a successful kingdom minded business.

Last week we discussed the ‘Who’, now we are going to discuss the ‘What’.

In my 6 plus years of working with business owners and entrepreneurs, I run into a very common misconception. That is the mousetrap syndrome.

It was once said that “If you build a better mouse trap, the world will come knocking on your door.”

Hogwash!  That, my friend, is a lie from the pit of hell. (Okay a bit harsh, but you get my drift.)

Too many business owners and entrepreneurs are focused on building a better ‘thing’. Be it a service or product. They never even find out if there is a desire for their new product.

Case in point, a long ago client of mine was in the real estate investing world. He had the best stuff in the world. His forms, training and events were the best in the world. But he was hung up on leading with a concept and program that people needed not wanted.

He wanted to sell ‘estate planning’ to newbie real estate investors first.

My response was simple. “If they don’t have anything in their estate, why would they need to protect it? Let’s help them get something to protect.”

His case is a classic example of putting the need before the want and it being disastrous.

Our first step was to go to his existing customer base and find out exactly what they wanted from him. Guess what, less than 8% of his clients wanted information on estate planning. What they wanted overwhelmingly was information on how to make money from investing to get out of debt.

When we started selling the want of the customer his business tripled within 6 months. He went from having 35 at his events to having 400 in a very short time.  The net impact on his business was astounding.

All because he spent time to discover what his customer wanted.

How do you find out what the customer wants? Simple, you ask them, using surveys.

If you have existing customers, send out an email with a link to an online survey. (You can use www.SurveyGizmo.com as an inexpensive way to gather responses.) Don’t expect everyone to take the survey, 2 – 5% is an acceptable response rate.

To help gather more responses offer up a free gift or bonus for taking the survey.

If you don’t have a customer base, you will want to drive traffic to a landing page online and survey potential customers. (More on that later.)

In the end you’ll have a strong group of responses from your core customers. You’ll know what they want from and you and you’ll be able to better deliver to their wants.

Next week we’ll discuss how to deliver the message and the product.

Have a blessed week.

Matt Gillogly

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