In this episode, we continue our journey and drill further into defining our customers. After we have an idea of who the CORE market is, we need to figure out the identity and persona of the specific customer we are trying to serve.

Defining the Customer Profile

An intimate relationship with customers will help us gain their loyalty. It will make them come back for our products with great support. They will also refer us to others. For this, we will have to:

Listen to customers: Focus on what they say and do. Learn what they are saying to others in different places. Follow their actions on places like social media. What we are trying to understand is their needs and frustrations. Participate in the conversation to get the insights to their actions.

Discover what they are looking for: Examine the features that they want. Identify the changes that they are looking for by going out there, creating a dialogue and mixing with them. Know what is liked and disliked about your products and services. The common gripes will help you to fix and tweak the things you provide.

Find what customers are seeing and hearing: It is beneficial to know about the information that reaches the ears and eyes of your customers from different media sources. Know everything that is being said about your products and stay a step ahead. Create products that will allow you to direct the communication.

Learn what is frustrating your customers: Gather information about the obstacles that are aggravating them. Do not speculate at all. Without pretending to know what customers want, learn their real aspirations and dreams. Elevate a step higher to fulfill their aspiration and give them something greater.

Understand what customers are thinking and feeling: People buy from us because they want to feel something. They are looking to get a benefit from the product. When you recognize them deeply, you will understand their pain and gain. You will be able to speak to them at a level that will create intimacy.

So, ultimately take the core market and define the ideal customer persona with great precision. Ask questions and get involved to understand what they are hearing and seeing, thinking and feeling. Put that all together and change the dynamics of your relationship with customers.

— Begin Transcript —

Hey there, Mel Abraham here, the author of the brand new number 1 best-selling book, The Entrepreneur’s Solution and the founder of Business Breakthrough Academy where we teach you how to design a business and create a life: A life of financial freedom and peace of mind.

And welcome back to this episode of The Entrepreneur’s Solution show and we’re going to continue our journey just like in our last episode. We talked about, how do you create a … understand who your core market is, your target market and what I call the CORE market which is really based upon someone that you’re connected with, that you have some originality or distinction with, you can get results with and that you can deliver with excellence. So, that’s what I call the CORE market.

This episode we’re going to drill even further. We’re actually going to drill down and say
• Who’s the specific customer?
• What’s the definition?
• What’s the persona of that specific customer that we should be serving?

I’m going to give you my framework on building that customer profile so you can build that intimacy in a way that you build loyalty. And just like every other episode, this episode comes with a downloadable guidebook and in order to get that downloadable guidebook, you simply need to go to MelAbraham.com/session023.

But if you’re on the road, you happen to be at the gym or you happen to be on a run, you happen to be driving, and you can’t write that down or you don’t have access to a computer, simply go ahead and text MYLEGACY, one-word no-spaces MYLEGACY to 38470. You’ll get a text back with the download link so you can get the download and the guidebook and the tools that are associated with this module and every other episode as we go forward.

So, after this brief introduction, we’re going to come back and we’re going to talk about: How do we drill down and figure out who our perfect customer is and what their persona is?

And I’ll see you back here right after this brief introduction. Cheers.

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Hey there, welcome back I’m Mel Abraham, the author of the number 1 best-selling book, The Entrepreneur’s Solution, the founder of Business Breakthrough Academy. And welcome back to this episode of the Entrepreneur’s Solution.

In the last episode, we actually talked about what it takes to understand who your CORE market is and we built it based upon a framework where we were looking at this and saying, “Look, our core market is based upon understanding:
• The identity of who it is.
• The problem we’re trying to solve.
• Where they seem to hang out.
• The solution that we are creating.
• The objections that might exist so we can respond to them, and then
• Who they’re loyal to?
• Who are they, who are the outsiders that might influence them in the process?

And so, so we talked about that in the last episode, understanding that CORE market and gave you some of the questions to ask and a guidebook that allowed you to build on that.

What I want to do today is actually drill down further and say, “All right, so now we have an idea who the market is. Let’s figure out the identity, the persona, the personality, if you will of the very customer that we’re trying to serve.” The very customer that we’re trying to make a difference and to transform their lives to allow them to live a greater existence because of our products or services.
And so, we’re going to really build on this concept of customer profile; at least, my philosophy, my process when I work with clients on defining what that customer profile is.

Most of the time what happens is this—as we spend a lot of time listening to what our customers are saying or we listen, or we watch to what they’re doing. So, and that’s a lot of times what ends up happening when we’re evaluating who our customer is, we focus on just this one aspect, this one aspect of: What do they say and what do they do?

Which is fine and it’s great, and we need to understand what it is they’re saying about their needs, about their frustrations. All of those things, we need to watch what they do. But remember, the dynamic of understanding our customer profile is the deeper we can entrenched into,
• Who our customer is?
• What their persona is?
• What their personality is?
– The elements of their persona. The deeper entrenched we are with them, the more intimate we will have, the more intimacy we’ll have with them. And when we have, why is intimacy that important?

Well, think about it. The more intimate relationship you create with someone—whether it’s your customer or a loved one—the more intimate relationship you create with someone, typically the more loyalty they have with you.

So, what I want to do is take you through this hierarchy of understanding and that what we’ll do is—every step of the way we will increase the intimacy which will increase the loyalty, which will increase the customer relationship with you.
• Their desire to refer you.
• Their desire to champion you.
• To cheerlead you.
• To use your products.
• To come back.

That’s the key. So, the very, the very basic is
• What do they say? And
• What do they do? And
• What are they saying to people?
• What are they saying on social media?

Specially, in today’s world, we can, in the social media, where we can have a message out to a lot of people, thousands of people about our product or service immediately. We are no longer in an environment where the media is the one that’s doing the reporting; where the product creators, where the manufacturers, the distributors, the companies out there are doing the advertising.

No, no. We’re in a place where we are the media.
• We are the customer.
• We are the producer.
• We are the media.
• Our customers are the media.

At our fingertips, we have the ability to be a publisher, a radio station and a TV station. I’m filming this. It’s as if I have my own TV station. It’s on podcast, as if I have my own radio station. It’s on a blog post. It’s as if, I have my own newspaper. And we can get this out to thousands of people in an instant.

Well think about that from your product or service. And now it becomes really important to have your ear to you customer and understand what it is they’re talking about. What it is they’re saying and enter into the conversation from where they’re at.

So, what is your customer saying about their needs, about the products, about the other products and the competition?
• What are they doing?
• What actions are they taking in the process?

And then we move from there and go to the next level which is
• What do your customers see?
• What are they looking at?
• What are they looking at in the context of features?
• What are they looking at in the context of benefits?
• What are they looking for in the process of solving the problem that you are trying to solve?

And ask yourself that question: “What are my customers looking for?”
• What do they see that they would like to have different?
• How would they like to have it differently?

And be part of that. In the last episode, we talked a little bit about direct research and indirect research. Remember, direct research is really one-on-one or interviews or getting out there with the customer. And this is what I’m asking you to do here is—to get out there and get intimate with the customer. To mix it up with them in a way:
• That you create a dialogue,
• That you create a connection,
• You create a relationship.
• That you start asking the questions.

Look, the best feedback you can from a customer is for them to say, “You know what? I don’t like the way this works or I don’t like the way that works.” Versus them turning around and saying, “I’m going to find it somewhere else”.
I’d rather the customer tell me so we can fix it, tweak it and change it to make it make sense to the customer because if we see a commonality in what it is they’re saying, doing or seeing that’s giving us a message. So, we need to be out there directly with the customers. This is direct research. This is the way, the way we want to work it.
• We need to find our customers.
• We need to hang out with them.
• We need to listen to them.
• We need to create a dialogue with them.

And it’s easier today than it’s ever been because of social media, having Facebook. You have companies like Clifbar that has their own Facebook group and they’re listening to their customer. They have their own Twitter feed and they’re listening to the customers and they’re watching the feed and they’re able to work from that. So, what does your customer see?
Then,
What do they hear?
• What are they hearing as far as in the marketplace, in the industry?
• What are they hearing from the competition?
• What are they hearing from the news media?
• What are they hearing on social media?

Are you aware of what they’re hearing?
• Do you know what’s being said?
• Are you monitoring it?

Further that, forget just monitoring it. Are you creating it?

Are you creating and getting ahead of the message where you put it out there in front of them.
• That you allow them to hear what you want them to hear.
• That you’re directing the messaging and the communication.

And once we have this, we then move to this.
• What is their pain?
• What is it that they’re frustrated with?
• What is it that they’re aggravated with?

What is it that they feel as an obstacle in their life, an obstacle that if removed would change and shift everything for them?
Do you know what those are?
• Have you asked?
• Have we looked at it?
• Have we looked at the way to may be, solve that?
Or are you just guessing?

Because I know a lot of entrepreneurs that guess, it’s interesting; the funny thing is that a lot of times we are not our customers. So, we pretend to know what our customers want, need, desire. But we’re not really our customer. And if we’re not our own customer, we need to go out to them and say
• What is it that’s causing you pain?
• What is it that’s causing you aggravation and frustration?
• What are the obstacles and the challenges that you’re dealing with?

And the deeper we get an understanding of that, the easier it’ll be for us to solve it and to speak to the very thing that they are looking to solve.

And then, once we understand that, we need to now elevate ourselves beyond the pain to above that, to what I call the gain. Their aspirations, their dreams, what does it look like? Can we turn around and take not only our solution to the problem but elevate that solution from a solution to an aspiration?

To give them something greater, to give them something bigger:
• What are their aspirations?
• What are their dreams?
• Are we speaking to their dreams?
• Do we understand what they are?

If we don’t we need to have these conversations with them at a much deeper level. And when we do this, and now this is the thing that trumps all of this below and that is understanding what our customer are thinking and feeling.
Most of the time, when someone buys something from us it’s because they want to feel something. It’s not because they want the product itself. It’s what the product will give them. It’s the benefit of the benefit. What is it that they’re really feeling inside?

When you get the depth of understanding of what they feel and what they’re thinking by understanding:
• What they say or do.
• What they’re seeing in the marketplace.
• What they’re hearing in the marketplace.

The pain that is in their heart or in their life, the gain and aspiration that comes from it. You will speak to them at a level that it’s going to create this intimacy within your customer and within yourself with them that they’re loyalty is going to increase and your ability to provide the solution, to provide value to them and their willingness to pay for it goes through the roof.

So, the ultimate is for us to understand what they’re thinking and what they’re feeling, but the pathway to get there is to start down at the bottom and say,
• What are they saying or doing?
• What are they seeing?
• What are they hearing?
• What are they feeling for a pain, obstacle, challenge, frustration perspective?
• What are their aspirations?

And then put that together. Now you’ll understand what they’re thinking or feeling. And now you change the dynamics of your relationship with your customer profile.

Think about this, we take and we go through, and drill down to get to our core market first. Now, we take that core market and we say, “Now how would I pick the customer out of that core market and define what their persona is, what their personality, what’s going on in their life” And create that unique customer profile—a single, not a group. A single customer profile that we now can speak to
• With our product,
• With our services,
• With our connection,
• With our social media.

Every step of the way to create an intimate relationship with them and a loyalty that will be unequal.

Now that’s the way to get your customer profile in place and to do it with much greater precision. Now it requires you:
• To get out there with the customer,
• To mix it up,
• To connect with them,
• To ask questions,
• To listen to them and be part of the process.

And not simply conjecture or speculation and guessing what it is. But really asking and care about the answer. So, that’s the key to it.

I hope you found this of value. Go ahead and download the guidebook. It’ll take you through some of the questions that in more detail, that’ll force you to ask and start to really refine who your customer profile is. To get that downloadable guidebook; remember you go to: MelAbraham.com/session023.

And if you’re not by your computer, you’re listening to this while you’re on a run or at the gym again, you can text, you can text MYLEGACY one-word no-spaces to 38470 and we’ll get you the download link immediately.

And you know while you’re at it, make sure that you’ve subscribed to the, to these episodes so you get notified of all the different tools and everything that gets released on a regular basis because this is the way I can become your entrepreneurial mentor on an ongoing basis to allow you to take your dreams out of the darkness, shake them off, give them life and give you the tools and tactics to make them real.

And while you’re at it, might as well share this with a friend. Allow them to get the gift of entrepreneurship, the gift of possibility to allow their dreams to come to fruition also.

So, until our next episode, it is great to have you on this episode. I hope to see you again soon.

If you have questions though, if you have questions on this episode or anything else, business, success or wealth related, go to AskMelNow.com and you’ll be able to leave me a message and we’ll make sure that we get it answered on one of the episodes. Because I want to make sure that you feel truly supported on your journey.

And until we get a chance to see each other again,

May your vision be grand, your journey epic and your legacy significant!

See you soon. Cheers. Bye!!

— End Transcript —
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Like this? Please share it and help a few more people bring their dreams out of the darkness and give life to them again.  Cheers, Mel
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