Business NLP - How to Make More Money in Your Coaching, Training, Consulting Business Part 1

Find Out What Your Customer Wants and what the Market Wants "Just today, we got a call from a potential client who wants us to come in to teach our selling skills to their Sales people. And we said to them, "What is it that your customers want and need? What is it that your customers buy?" And they said, "What's the difference?"" Persuasion Engineering Richard Bandler and John La Valle

So what is the difference between wants and needs?

In All Marketers Are Liars Seth Godin writes "Marketers profit because consumers buy what they want, not what they need. Needs are practical and objective, wants are irrational and subjective. And no matter what you sell-and whether you sell it to businesses or consumers-the path to profitable growth is in satisfying wants, not needs." For example even though people may need a car, they may want a specific make and model of car like a BMW328i and often they will buy the make and model that they want rather than a basic car. So I set out to design a simple process to find out what your customer wants that I want to share with you.

Step 1: Create a new habit of gathering data

Imagine that you are an anthropologist who is visiting a new tribe for the very first time and you do not know anything about the tribe.

 

What questions are on your mind?

What are you curious about?

How will you record the data?

Why gather data? So that you can later compare it with data that you have gathered from other existing and potential customers, look for patterns and turn it into information that you can use to better meet their wants.

Step 2: Ask your Existing Customers

I have found that the direct approach often works best. Ask your existing clients "What do you want from my company?". You may even find that, when you are really listening, there are many clients who will give you all the information you need without you even having to ask for it directly. As well as asking them face to face, you can ask them by telephone or email and you may also want to come up with a list of ten more in depth questions that you can turn into a mini survey on the web (there are several online tools available, some of which are free).

Step 3: Create a mind map to record the information

An essential skills in the taking in information is to use a mind map. This will enable you to structure the information in a way that makes sense to you.

Step 4: Do some keyword research on the internet

There are several tools available on the internet that will enable you to discover the precise search terms that potential customers are searching for in Google which is a great way to do market research.

Step 5: Identify patterns in the data

Once you have gathered enough data from each source you can make comparisons, look for patterns and draw conclusions on what your customers and the market wants.

Enjoy.

Graham Constantine from Whole Being is an NLP Trainer and with his partner Claire Towers he specialises in helping Graduates who are unemployed to make the transition from education into employment or setting up their own business or volunteering or work placement or further education.

By Graham Constantine