How to Figure Out What Your Customers Want

Want to watch, rather than read, to learn how to find out what your customers really want?

Here's a video overview of the following blog post:

Do you have a million ideas for what you could sell to your customers?

Or maybe your well of ideas has gone dry?

Or you have a lot of content already (eg, from ContentSparks.com) and you don’t know which to use first.

The question that’s probably going through your head is…

What do my customers want?

• What should I be teaching them next?
• What products should I be creating next?
• What content should I put into my membership site or blog?
• What webinar topic should I focus on next?

All great questions which you simply can't answer on your own.

You need to ask your customers directly somehow, somewhere.

You’ll find a lot of information on how to better understand your customers and their needs in our course called Know Your Customer. It especially covers how to use surveys and interviews.

But here's one question you should NOT be asking:

‘What do you want?'

Because they don't really know.

Your customers know the problems and challenges they have, but they don't necessarily know what the best solutions are.

As Steve Jobs said…

‘Customers don't know what they want until you show it to them.'

Now, I'm not talking about coming up with some earth-shattering invention, like the Apple computer or Velcro.

However, you can easily use a survey, interview, or other research method to get a good idea of the challenges your customers are facing right now, at this point in time.

Then it's up to you to use your expertise to figure out different solutions to their challenges.

That's your job, not your customer’s.

Once you’ve gathered your research and gotten an intimate understanding of your customers, you’ll have a much easier time tapping your own knowledge to come up with the right solution for your customers’ unique problems.

And you can even give your customers some choices of solutions, so that they can pick the ones they want vs. asking them to randomly pull some out of thin air.

That information alone can tell you which of 3 or 4 different topics you should cover in your next webinar.

I've used this method to determine which product topics to create next, and you'll see me do it again in the future – multiple times!

So if you have a whole load of content sitting on your computer and you're wondering which to use first, try asking your customers or prospects directly.

• Give them a list of the top ones you think will benefit them most (based on researching their challenges).
• Then ask them to rank the topics in priority order.

If you need an easy way to survey, try using Survey Monkey. It's free up to 100 respondents and the interface is extremely intuitive.

One more note on asking customers what they want…

What your customers want or need will change over time.

Don’t assume that the survey or interview you conduct today will be applicable in a year. People’s challenges and needs change and you need to stay tuned in so that you can respond appropriately.

Don’t guess what your customers need.

Make your life easy and just ask!

Our customizable course, Know Your Customer, goes through a variety of methods for getting a deeper understanding of your customers and their needs.

You can head over here to grab a license to use the content with your own customers and prospects:

Know Your Customer

You’ll get everything you need to instantly create your own course on how to better understand your customers.