1) Find a business owner and talk to them about their customers. Who do they think their target customers are? Where do they find their customers? What are their customer's demographics? What kinds of media do their customers consume? Etc.
I spoke to my mother who is an entrepreneur in New York City that opened her own business for interior design. She targets customers that just bought a home that are looking to decorate or customers that are redoing their homes and just finished with contractors that also are looking to decorate. She finds a lot of her customers through contractors, fabric or furniture stores, real estate agents and a lot of referrals. The customer demographic is mostly early 30s to 50s newly purchased homes that can spend money. The customers read through a lot of design magazines that she has ads in as well as websites like Houz.com that she has ads on as well. The customers main problems is the issue of wives deciding things without their husbands or vice versa. She is currently trying to fix their problems by ensuring communication through phones or emails before.
Also, be sure to ask: What are their customers' problems? What are customers currently doing to fix their problems? How big, on a scale of 1-10, is this problem in their customers' lives? What are some of the bigger problems their customers are dealing with? Do their customers have a budget allocated to fix this problem?
2) Next, go and talk to 3 'target customers' -- using the demographics/psychographics the entrepreneur described. As these 'target customers' the questions in the paragraph directly above.
1. Woman 30 years old: Main problem is deciding things while her husband is at work and he gets upset that she decides without him. The problem is about a 5 because they are still working together.
2. Newly married couple: They don't really have a lot of problems besides having a lot to purchase because they just moved into their house together so they are really trying to budget their money wisely but also make it their dream home.
3. Elderly woman: Her main issue is she doesn't know what she wants but she knows she wants to have a new and happy environment in her home.
3) Reflect. Does the entrepreneur adequately understand their customers' problems? Where are the differences? Why might these differences exist.
I thought it was really interesting hearing the consumer issues from the business owner as well as the consumer. It is cool seeing both perspectives. The differences match and I think that is because the business owner really understands her consumers and tries hard to listen to them and use their responses to benefit her future business with other customers.
Hi, Alyssa. I think the problem for many people is that they want something done, but they don't know how or what to do. When I have my own home, I want it to be beautifully decorated, but I don't know if I know enough about interior decoration to have enough of an impact. Check out my blog: http://camivilla10.blogspot.com/2016/02/the-twenty-percent.html
ReplyDeleteHi! I do not know too much about interior decoration, but i do know it can be fairly expensive. This could be a main problem, especially with younger people who are just getting the hang of living on their own and making their home what they want it to be. If you are interested you can check out my blog here! http://anaksunamoon216.blogspot.com/2016/02/the-twenty-percent.html
ReplyDeleteI think that it is really great that the business owner understood the challenges with the consumers that they have to deal with. Knowing your customer is probably one of the better things that someone in sales could do. If you are trying to give the customer something they don't want, the outcome is obvious. I enjoyed your post and I think you did a really good job!
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