Happy New Year, everyone! Welcome to 2005. I wish you a prosperous, healthy, happy year for you and your business.
A good friend of mine was recently put in charge of marketing for a nonprofit I admire greatly. She was both excited about her position, and also wanting to learn more. The big problem she was confronting was how to get the word out in a way that filled their classes. It didn't help that, like many nonprofits and businesses, the expenses were higher than revenue generated, and so there was pressure to perform.
As we discussed one of their upcoming programs, I pointed out a few things in the marketing approach that were going to cause some serious problems in how the marketing message was received. I explained what would help, and she agreed that it would make total sense.
Then, later in the conversation, the same point came up again, in a different context. And again.
Now, my friend is really, really sharp. She is NOT a slow learner. In fact, as we talked, she was one of the quicker people I've seen to catch on at a gut level to what I was saying.
But for awhile it was still hitting her in a blind spot. Because she hadn't yet made The Biggest Shift that will make a huge part of your business, including marketing and product development, nearly as easy as falling off a log. So, what is this Biggest Shift?
Seeing things from your customers' perspective.
Don't be fooled. This is an extremely easy intellectual concept, and a really, really challenging shift to make in your perspective. And it has everything to do with having a successful business that is completely in service.
For years I was involved in community activism and nonprofit work. The profit motive wasn't even on the horizon, and yet even though we were dedicated solely to helping and serving people, we were making the same mistake. We were only seeing the world through our eyes, and, as a consequence, we ended up "preaching to the choir," as they say- with dismal responses to our outreach efforts.
When I came back into the business world, I was extremely wary. I didn't know if I would be a stranger in a strange land, if anyone would hold my ideals. I now know that those fears were naive because I talk to people like you every working day. The truth is that many people in business care deeply about helping and serving.
However, it's not only the ideals that were shared. The same problem in perspective exists in almost every business I work with. If you are having the same kind of results we were having, it's probably for the same reason. Only seeing the world through your eyes.
If you are offering help, chances are you have already struggled with, and walked through, the particular problem that you help to solve.
This means that you live on the other side of the fence from your best prospects. They haven't walked through the problem. On your side of the fence, the world looks big and beautiful. You see the whole picture, and you can name what's really going on.
But they can't. All they can see is the problem. They don't fully understand the larger picture or what would really help it. If they did, they would already have done it. If they talk as if they see the big picture, but still stuck, there is still more for them to see.
You can't really serve someone until you see the world as they see it, and understand how their blind spots look to them. I can guarantee you they don't look like blind spots to the person who can't see them.
This is a beautiful shift to make, and is, in its essence, a spiritual shift. What I mean is that to make the shift to see things from your customer's eyes you have to break down barriers between "us" and "them." You have to drop the idea that marketing is warfare, and that you have to play to win.
Instead, it's best done like the perfect holiday season- when each gift feels wonderful to give or receive, that the person really knew and cared about you enough to find the perfect thing that you really needed and wanted.
How do you do that? You have to know your customers, and you have to see things from their perspective. The Biggest Shift is a sign of business maturity. You don't have to be the little boy who gives his mother a baseball mitt and ball because that's what he wants for himself. Instead, you can be the person who knows if Aunt Matilda, who loves cats, needs new kitchen hot mitts. You can then find the perfect mitts for her, with cats all over them, in colors that match her kitchen.
The Biggest Shift can turn your marketing and offerings into the perfect gifts, by seeing through the eyes of your customers. Your business just may feel like the perfect holiday most of the time.
Keys to "The Biggest Shift."
• In order to speak someone's language, you have to know them, intimately. Most marketing addresses "the public." Don't do this.
Instead, starting with what you know about your favorite customers, use the Remembrance to get really clear on two things: Who and What. Who are your best prospective customers, and What is the problem they are facing that you want to help them with.
Some examples:
Heart of Business: helping people in business who want to make a difference (Who) and who need to make a healthy profit. (What)
A landscaper: Helping homeowners who care about the environment (Who) who want a beautiful garden. (What)
A coach: Helping successful executives who have lost energy and enthusiasm (Who) and want passion and commitment without sacrificing profit or impact. (What)
This may take you awhile to get clear, but work with it.
• If you feel needy yourself, it's really hard to put the focus on your customer. Use the Remembrance and the Unveiling Your Jewel exercise (see the workbook, below) to deal directly with your internal neediness. Once you feel taken care of, it's much easier to turn your attention to those you serve.
• Seeing things through another's eyes is very intimate and vulnerable. To do it successfully you have to have humility, and you have to be able to see them very clearly. Identifying the Who and the What (see above) is about knowing your prospects as individual people. If you ask them about what they need and what they are looking for, the marketing and sales process becomes a whole lot easier. Use the Remembrance to ask to be shown what they really need and what the world looks like from their perspective. (The Remembrance is detailed in my workbook- details below.)