So what do you need to know? If you don’t know who your customer really is, start there.

Now many of you think you do know who they are. You’ve gone through exercises where you’ve described your customer to a tee.  But what’s that based on? What you think you know or what you know you  know?

If you’re just guessing you’re fooling yourself and you’re not optimizing your business or serving your customers – so really think about this before you move on.

If you really know who your customers are then find out how else you can serve them.  Don’t make a product you think they should like, and then try to sell them. Ask them what they would like and then provide it to them. (Gee that sounds easier doesn’t it?)

So what are the basic steps? Get a survey program. That’s simple. There are all kinds of online programs that are simple to set up and even have free basic services. Some people like surveymonkey.  I use surveygizmo. That’s because it was recommended to me by the survey king, Dr. Glenn Livingston. It’s always done the job for me.

Decide on what benefit you can offer your people for participating. We’re in the business book summary business so we offered free additional summaries. What online bonus could you give your people?

Next decide what questions to ask.  The fewer the better (no more than 7 or 8).  If you don’t have a real good idea of your customers start with requesting basic demographic and psychographic information. If you are doing a product launch and you’re looking for holes in your offer ask about the objections they’d have to the offering. If you’re using the survey to create an entirely new product from scratch use the question Jeff Walker loves: “What’s your biggest frustration?” It’s a great way to start the dialogue. The next question might be: “What’s important about that?”

Don’t survey your entire list at the same time. When you get answers to the first layer of questions ask the next segment of your list to answer different questions one level down. For example, if your first group of respondents told you their biggest frustrations was communication, you could ask the next segment of your list: “Who do you have the biggest problem communicating with?”and/ or “When do you get tripped up the most in a difficult conversation?” and/or “Do you have problems communicating up or down, in large groups or one-on-one?”

You can drill down as many levels as you like. (We’ve done as many as 5 levels down.) Boy do you ever get killer info!

Now for the really fun stuff! This is where you get your customers/prospects on the phone.  How do you do this? Do you call randomly? Do they get ticked off? Do they want to talk to you?

This is what we do and it works like a charm. The last question in the online survey asks them if they’d be willing to participate in a 20 – 30 minute telephone interview. They get a small additional gift for participating. If they wish to participate they give us their telephone number and 3 times during the following week they are available. We follow up in an email confirming the time and then call them.

Every single person either kept the appointment or contacted us to reschedule. They took this seriously. We went over their survey results on the phone and asked them questions to really get a flavor for what they wanted and how they wanted it, it their words, with their emotions. You know going in that certain issues are important to them. On the phone you can learn why they are important to an entirely new degree. By simply asking the question: “What’s important about that?” perhaps many times, you really start to uncover the base emotions at play. By asking for stories about their lives when they’ve been encountered with that problem, witnessed that problem or seen people solve that problem, your understanding of their situation skyrockets.

People are exceptionally candid in these interviews so be prepared. I have no formal coaching training and yet people opened up for me and they will for you if you come in willing to really listen and with an intent to help them move forward.

Getting to know and connect with my customers has been one of the single most beneficial and rewarding experiences of my business life.  I hope I have encouraged you to walk down this path and really have a customer driven company with all of the benefits it entails.