Why does everyone talk about ultimate customers, perfect customers and customer avatars?
Find out WHY it's so important.
Bringing Business to Retail
The Importance Of Knowing Your Customer
Bringing Business to Retail Podcast Episode 8 with me, your host, Selena Knight, and today we're talking about knowing your audience. Welcome to the Bringing Business to Retail Podcast on SelenaNight.com. Stay ahead of the competition by opening your doors to business experts so you can learn, grow and be inspired. Passionate about bringing business strategies to independent retailers. Please welcome your host, Selena Knight. Hi there. Now during this last week I've been feverishly working on the launch pad. My course that's launching in May that shows you a step-by-step guide on how to open your own retail store. Now this has brought up a lot of, I don't know, reminiscing of when I first opened my shop and all of the things that I had to do to get my ducks in a row and how I wished that there was somebody who could have shown me what I needed to do. I mean this was quite a few years ago and even back then there weren't the resources that we had. So anyway I was working on the first module. I'd actually already finished a couple of other modules but I went back to the first one because I really wanted to nail it and it was about knowing your numbers and that kind of flowed on to the second one, the second module which talks about you and your brand. And when I was thinking of these, when I was writing the modules down and I was preparing the notes and the spreadsheets and the videos, I was thinking you know what, I really should have a podcast on how important it is to know your audience because this is kind of the key thing. It's a fundamental to being in business and it doesn't matter if you're opening a retail store or if you're going to become a coach or if you're a health and wellness expert or if you're going to run courses. At the end of the day if you don't know who your audience is, you've got no hope of selling to them. It's a bit of a kind of throw it up in the air and see if somebody catches it. So today I've got an episode on how important I think it is to know who your audience is and my four steps to getting the right customer avatar if that's what we want to call it. So my four steps to being really to really nailing who it is that your perfect customer is. So let's jump on in to today's episode. Hey there and welcome back to the Bringing Business to Retail podcast. I'm your host Selena Knight and today we're going to talk about getting to know your audience. In today's podcast I want to talk about why it's so super important that you know who your audience or your customer actually is. Now you may have heard the term target customer or perfect customer or even customer avatar being bandied about. These are all the same things and it's about knowing who you're selling your products to. Have you heard the saying if you market to everyone, you market to no one. Now if I had a dollar for every time that I heard a store owner or a business in general tell me that everybody is my customer. Then I could have bought Necker Island of Regent Branson by now. Seriously, everybody is not your target customer. I wonder why you're here today. Why are you listening to my podcast? Why are you giving up your precious time when you could be doing something else? Why are you listening to me talk about business? And I'd love it if you could head over to the blog afterwards or tweet me and tell me why you listen to the podcast. What are you hoping to get out of it? Because you see each person has a different goal and this will always be the case when you're selling something to someone regardless of whether it's a retail product or whether it's a service. It's up to you to know why your customer is here and that's why I've just asked you. Why are you here today? Why are you listening to this podcast while you're working out or you're folding the washing or you're on your commute? Why have you decided that this is the podcast that's hopefully going to get something out of it for you? What are you hoping to achieve? What are you hoping to learn by listening to the Bringing Business to Retail podcast? And that's why I'm asking. I really would like to know because I need to know what your wants are and what your desires are just like you need to know what your customers wants or desires are. And as I said before this does not just occur in the retail business and it doesn't just occur in a service-based business. It occurs in any business where you're selling something because you want your customers to be absorbed in what you're selling. You want them to be interested and intrigued and mesmerized. You want them to be enthralled when you're talking to them that they're nodding and they're smiling or they're laughing and that they're engaged. Now this may not be the case if you're selling somebody say a toothbrush for example but even if we're talking about a humble toothbrush if you are describing the benefits of that product and it was solving a problem for the person who was buying it there's a good chance they'll nod along while you're talking or they may smile or they may just interact with what it is that you're saying. So each person is going to have a different let's call it currency. For some people it may be simply looking for a product that fixes a need. So having a product that solves a problem that they've got it doesn't need bells and whistles you just need to identify what the problem is and explain how your product or your service is going to solve it. But on the other hand there will be people who are in it for the experience. When price isn't a factor and even solving the problem may not be at the top of their reasoning. I want you to think about this. Think about buying a premium ice cream cone from a gourmet ice cream shop that you don't need ice cream and it may not even be hot outside. You've decided that you're going to go to that store because when you walk in the door you're greeted by someone who's giving you samples. The decor is as delicious as the ice cream is and you have dozens of flavors to choose from. You can have pistachio, you can have peppermint, you can have pomegranate. You even get to choose the type of cone that you want. Do you want a regular cone? Are you going to splash out and get the waffle cone or do you really splash out and get the chocolate dipped waffle cone? Now lots of times people tell us that having loads and loads of choices will mean you choose nothing and you walk away. But we're back in that ice cream store and you're standing there and you're looking at the counter and you're thinking about what flavor is going to suit you today and you decide today you're going to have peppermint chocolate chip and the server scoops it out and puts it into the ice cream cone. Is it a double or a single? And then before they hand it over to you this glorious mountain of confection you're even asked if you want whipped cream and chocolate topping. It's an assault on your senses and on your brain chemistry. The anticipation is every bit as exciting as the reward of the ice cream. Now you know as you take that first bite that this ice cream is going to be rich and creamy. It's going to be full of flavor. It's going to be an experience in every bite. The premium ice cream store knows that you don't need ice cream but they provide an experience and that experience keeps you coming back and that experience is why people will happily pay five or ten dollars for an ice cream. I mean who would have thought when you had your business model if you thought I'm going to sell ice cream and I'm going to sell my ice cream for eight dollars fifty for a scoop. A lot of people would have laughed at that but clearly there's a market for it. Now when you know the why, the why somebody is interested in your product you can tailor your pitch or your sales pitch or your or your presentation to your customers' needs but what happens when we just don't bother to think about why our customer is here. What happens when we haven't tailored our sales pitch or our presentation or even our product for what our customer actually wants? What happens when you talk about whatever you want to talk about rather than what your customer wants to hear? Let me tell you, you end up with a cranky dissatisfied customer. You end up with someone who can't see the need for whatever it is you're trying to sell them. So how do we work out the why? I've got a little thing here that I use when I try and work out the why and you'll hear lots of people talking about the why. Why are you selling what it is you sell? Why are you passionate about what you do? Today we're working on the why of your customer. So my tip number one is be aware. What time of the day are they coming in? Is it before lunch? Is it after lunch? What sort of mood are they going to be in? Are they cranky? Are they tired? Are they hungry? Be aware of how people react when they're in certain situations. So if they've come into your shop after they've hopped off the bus on their way home and they're trying to get home and cook dinner, they're going to be hungry, they're going to be antsy and they just want to get this thing that they're after. If that's the case, you're going to keep your sales pitch succinct. Dot pointed out to them. If they've had a few interactions with products, just pick them out the one that looks like it's going to work for them. They're coming to you because they want you to help. So we're being aware of our customer. Number two, simply ask. Begin with asking your in-store customers. Why do they come to your store? Why do they love what you have? Do they have any suggestions for things that they might like to see stocked in store? Depending on what you're selling, you may even be able to send out an email survey and you can do this as a follow-up after you've sold them a product or perhaps you can even run it as a competition to your mailing list. So if they send back an answer to your survey, you can use something like survey monkey or if they reply back to the email, they go into the draw to win a gift voucher for your store. You can get feedback on social media about the products before you even stock them. So take a picture, post it up onto your Facebook or your Instagram or your Twitter page and say, "Hey, we love this new dress. What do you think? Do you see yourself wearing it this summer? What would be your favorite color?" Ask them why they want these products and what is it they want in your store. Number three is look. Look at your customer and this kind of goes sort of hand-in-hand with being aware. How is your customer dressed? I have a little tip here that may or may not work for you, but go out to the car park and see what kind of cars they're driving. Now this sounds a bit silly, but you can tell a lot from the car that somebody drives and I'm not saying this to be pretentious. I'm just saying that your target market is going to be of a specific age and a specific income level. So if you can see the car that they're driving, this may give you a better indication of what it is that they're looking for. What's their average age? How many of them are there when they come into your store? Do they come in a group or with a partner? Do they come in with their best friend? Are they asking their friends for advice? Do they bring their mum or their dad? It obviously depends on what sort of products you're selling or do they generally just come in by themselves? When they come in, are they chatty or do they prefer to browse on their own? Pick up on what your customers' moods are when they come in this store? Do you generally have happy, bright, uplifting people? Or do you generally have, if you're a bookstore, you may have intelligent people who are coming in for the quiet and the peace and just the absorption into the whole idea of physical books? Pick up all of these things and I'll make a list of them and pop them into the show notes for you so you don't have to remember them and tailor what it is you're offering to this person. Number four is listen because when you have a customer in store, I want you to listen to what they're saying and this doesn't just mean to what they're saying to you. If they've got somebody along or if they're talking to another customer in the store, what are their comments? Go up and ask them questions. We talked about that in number one and look and listen to what it is they're talking about. Are they picking things up? Are they playing with them? Are they feeling the fabric? Are they shaking things to see how they sound? Are they holding them up for the light to see if they're sheer or if they're thick? And if it's possible, grab a quote from somebody. I'm not saying go up and say, "Hey, what did you say?" I'm saying, "Just pop it in the back of your mind or jot it down on a piece of paper if they happen to be nearby." Because you can use that quote when you write a product description up on your website and those are the best things. When you're buying a product online, when you can't see it, those sorts of quotes where somebody said, "I love the feel of the fabric" or "I love the fact that when I hold it up to the light, it's just that little bit shimmery." Those are the things you're not going to get out of a generic product description when you get it off the supplier's website. Those are the things that will get you the sale because clearly you're one up above somebody else. You are above your competition who has just copied and pasted the supplier's description and even better on a website. If you can get reviews, that's just going to knock your socks off in terms of selling. So grab that quote and pop it down. If you've got a product manual, you can pop it down or you can even just write it there, write it down and have it in the back of your head. That next time somebody asks about this product, you can say, "Well, a lot of our products, a lot of our customers think that this product is great for XYZ." And my last one is, if this is possible, and I know in a lot of big stores it's not going to be possible, but if you have a boutique store, refer to people by name because it will show that you're down to earth, you're happy to be present and you're truly engaged with your customer base. You have no idea how nice it is. Even if you go up and get your coffee and the barista says, "Hey, Sal, your usual skinny chai latte today," it makes you feel just that little bit special that somebody actually took the time to remember what it was you were looking for and took the time to remember your name. Now, I don't care if he's got it written down in a card. I don't look at what he's got going on behind there, but generally speaking, he just knows who I am because I go there on a regular basis. So if you do have regular customers, maybe they should be in your customer database, but if they're not, just ask them, "Oh, sorry, I didn't catch your name," because if you're having a general chit chat about a product or if you're just shooting the breeze, you're building rapport with your customers. And the fact that when they come in next time, you can call them by name, that is going to elevate you in their opinion. Because when you do this, you're defining your customer and you can then provide them with the highest return on their investment. And now remember, that does not have to just be a monetary investment. There's an opportunity cost when someone comes into your store and gives you their time. I love this quote from Seth Goden. Let me just grab it here so I can read it. He epitomizes about knowing about your customer in this example. Now let me just grab it. It's about Zappos, the shoe company. Zappos is a classic customer service company, and their customer is the person who buys the shoes. Nike, on the other hand, doesn't care very much at all about the people who buy their shoes, or even who the retailers are. What they care about is the often famous athlete who wear the shoes, and you'll often get paid to do it. Nike named buildings after these athletes, they caught them and they erect statues in their honor. Now think about that quote for just a minute. When you work in retail, you should think of each customer interaction as a presentation. That's the way I like to think about it anyway, because you are creating an experience for your customer. Now you'll hear me harp on and on and on about customer experience, because in my opinion, that is the key differentiator for any retail business. Once you've taken all the things I've just talked about into account, think about the outcome. What do you want your customer to take away from your presentation? What are the pains and the problems and the challenges that you're going to help them overcome? What are the key benefits that they're looking for? And what message or product do you want them to walk away with? Now sometimes you aren't going to be able to sell to them on the first go. Sometimes they're a big product or it's a product that's going to significantly change the way that they do something. Now if that's the case, don't feel that you have to push on and on and get them to walk out the door. In a lot of cases, it takes three interactions with a customer before they choose to buy a product. So what message or product do you want them to walk away with after you've had an interaction with them? Now I'm telling you this because I don't want you to drop the B-A-L-L, the ball because when you keep being aware, asking, looking and listening at the forefront of your mind when you're interacting with a customer, you'll be better prepared to provide the experience that your customer is seeking. And in turn, they're going to become an advocate for your product or service. So can you see now why I think it's so super important to know who your audience is? Because this is going to change if you haven't already worked out who your ultimate customer is or your perfect customer avatar is. This starts to change the way you run your business. So you start to change your processes. You may start to change your store layout. You may start to change even the way your your staff interact with customers because once you're aware of what your customer wants and why they want it, you can start to tailor everything that you're going to say and for them to see and the way that they're going to feel when they walk into your store. Now, I'm just going to finish off today with going back to Seth Godin's quote. If you can only build one statue, who is that statue going to be of? So with that, I'd love to say thanks so much for listening to today's episode. I'm hoping that you got a lot of benefit out of it. And there's a lot of things here today that you can take away and actually start working on in your own business. Because if you make these changes, you're going to be ahead of your competition because I can guarantee that there are only a handful of businesses in your industry who are out there, who are aware of their customers, who are asking, who are looking, who are listening. And when that's you, automatically, you go to the top of the food chain. Now, if you love today's episode, if you got something out of it, I'd be really appreciative if you could share it with a friend. If you don't feel like sharing it because you want to move to the top of the food change, feel free to go over to iTunes or Stitcher and leave me a review because the bringing to business to retail podcast is only new. And I need to have those reviews to make other people see just what a fantastic resource it is. So if you could spare a couple of minutes, if you're on your iPhone, you can literally just click the button that has the title name. And if you'd like to leave a review on Stitcher, you can head on over to the website and click the button and it will take you straight to the review. And on next week's episode, I'm actually going to read out a few of those reviews because I've had a few coming in and they're very exciting to see. It's my first lot of reviews. So if you get a review in, I may just pick yours to read out on the show next week. Now you have a great week and I'll catch you next Wednesday. Bye. So what do you think? Are you going to go away and actually work on who your audience is? Because when I did this podcast, I did, oh, I probably spent two hours working out who you probably are. Now I'm not going to go into the finer details because it's kind of like a bit of intellectual property working out who it is that you are listening to my podcast. But one of the things that came out when I was working out who my average person was was that you probably have a family and if you don't have a family, you are more than likely in your relationship and probably married. You're working at the moment and you would love to have your own business. Now in amongst all of this, I'm sure that you're probably struggling with how we go about getting everything done and a new business and keeping our family life on track and keeping our home life on track. So if you wanted to simplify your home and family life, but you didn't want a cookie cutter solution, well, let's face it. Life is a season, isn't it? It's as unique as your personality. So if you want to have a simplified home and family life, you're not alone. And I was talking with my friend Eva Vanstripe and I'll pop a link to her in the show notes. And she was telling me because I was telling her about how I was really struggling with some of the things that were happening, the podcast is really taking off, the blogs taking off, my course is going really, really well, I'm getting loads of interest, my mailing list is going up. And I just kind of felt like I was, I was missing a few things. And she said that she actually has a course and I mentioned this last week. So if you heard that last week, you just bear with me for a few minutes. And it's called simple life, peaceful home. And she tells me that I'm going to be taken gently by the hand to help me create a home and a life that's free of clutter and chaos and confusion. I mean, Eva's never been to my house, but there's a lot of clutter, a lot of chaos and confusion going on in our household and didn't help that our cleaner just had to resign. So there's a whole bunch of mess going on as well. So if you're struggling with clutter and too much stuff and you're missing out on appointments and if your mess is mounting and you haven't even got a cleaner, I hear you. So how about changing all of that to be peace-filled and intentional living? Kind of sounds too good to be true. But Eva is a friend of mine. She is the most rocking business owner that I know, apart from myself. She's a mum of five and she freaking homeschools like, I don't know how she does it all, but clearly she has a system and that system works. So she's going to be leading an amazing eight-week course on how to make a simple life and a peaceful home a reality for busy and stressed and exhausted women. So if you'd like to join her on the course, I've got a special little offer going. There's an affiliate link on the website that I'm going to pop it over to you. But if you need that clarity and you need to reduce the chaos out of your life, I really think this is something that could help you. And I know that I'll be jumping on that course to actually see how much I can just kind of minimise my life. Now she obviously knows who her target market is. She knows who her audiences and she's mapped it out. And I think for a lot of you guys out there listening, it kind of rung a bell when I was reading about the chaos and the confusion when I was thinking that's me. And if that's me, there's a good chance that that's you too. But anyway, you've heard me going on. So I'm going to leave it at that. If you want to know more about simple life, peaceful home, head on over to thecelynandight.com website. And in the podcast section, you'll find the show notes. Otherwise, you can search for BBTR8, Bringing Business to Retail, Episode 8. And all of the information that I've put up today will be there so you can just have it at your fingertips ready to read and click on. And with that, I bid you a due, good day, so long, farewell and I'll see you next week. Bye. [Music] [BLANK_AUDIO]