Grow Local Business by Thinking Like a Customer

As a local business owner, where do you focus your efforts to grow your business? Your answers might include things like keeping costs down, motivating your sales force, buying new equipment, or making product improvements. These are all great ideas, but there is one common problem with these efforts. Notice how they all tend to focus on your business and not your customer?

Of course, improving your business will ultimately allow you to better serve your customers, but that does not happen automatically. As long as your focus is on your own gain and benefit, you will miss the opportunity to connect with your customers and communicate in a way that inspires them to action. In order to grow your business you must win new customers and keep current ones. You do that by challenging yourself to think like a customer.

Here are three questions to help you connect with your buyers by thinking like a customer:

1. What do they really want?

When your customer comes into your shop to make a purchase, what is it that they actually want?  If they purchase a set of tires, is it because they simply wanted tires? Look a little deeper – perhaps they wanted to feel safer or improve the performance of their vehicle. By getting in touch with what your customers want, you can start a conversation that speaks to what they need rather than what you have to sell.

2. What are they afraid of?

For as many times as you have closed a sale, you probably have more experiences in which the buyer walked away. Why didn’t they decide to make the purchase? Think about their objections. Was it price? Was it that they were not sure they really wanted or needed that item? All of these barriers stem from apprehensions in the mind of the buyer. If you can indentify objections and address them early on, you remove the obstacles between you and your buyer.

3. What excites them?

Think about the times that you have seen your customers truly happy and excited about their purchases. Maybe it was because they felt they got a great deal, or they were relieved to have finally made a decision on a major purchase. Whatever that emotion is, if you can identify it and tap into it, you will be much closer to the sale. It’s all about crafting a personal and compelling message.

A simple way to get into the mind of your buyer is to think about the wants, objections, and motivations that you, yourself experience as a buyer. Write down some of those purchasing related emotions you feel. While this will provide a nice introduction to the concept, the best way to think like a buyer is to develop a buyer persona. The Upright team has helped many of our clients use this results-focused process to develop campaigns that grow business.

Ready to think like your customers? We are here to assist.