55: 3 Ways to Better Understand Your Customers

Kimberly Beer  0:00  

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Jaz  0:19  

Welcome to The Business Animal podcast. Saddle up for a gallop to the top of the animal industry, where you’ll learn how to tame your wild business beast, with tips, techniques, and tools that will take overwhelm to obedience school, and have you wagging your tail with joy. And now your hosts, Kim Beer, and Cara Taylor Swift.

Kimberly Beer  0:41  

Hey there business animals, it’s Kim with Be More Business

Cara Taylor Swift  0:44  

and Kara with Fast Horse photography.

Kimberly Beer  0:46  

And welcome to another episode of The Business Animal. Today we’re going to be talking about ways to better understand your customers specifically we’re going to talk about three ways to better understand your customers. Three, the big three, that’s our that’s our motto around here. So three ways you can better understand our customers. But before we dive into those three ways, Cara has done some really interesting research around why this is so important. And I would love for her to share that with you. And then I’m going to give a few two cents worth on my thoughts around why it’s so important to understand your customers.

Cara Taylor Swift  1:24  

Thank you Kim. So of course I have my list because that’s what I do. So we’re talking about three ways to better understand your customer. So for us, we’re talking about folks that are working within the animal, equine or pet based industry. So why is it important? Like why is this topic even important? I feel like sometimes we come at you guys with information without the front end of it. Like why is this important to you just hoping that you already know that? So the idea is, why is it important to understand the needs of your clients? Well, first of all, it’s all about relationships. Right? So we talk about this, I feel like Kim and I have had about 1000 episodes talking about increasing your relationship with clients, or we mentioned it how important this is. So it helps you maintain a good relationship with those folks that you’re already serving. We know from previous episode research that it’s going to cost you six to seven times more to attract new customers than it does to just maintain the ones that you already have. So this increases that lifetime value of your existing clients. It increases the lifetime value. So think about that people coming back to you over and over and over again, versus them working with you one time moving on to someone else. And then you out there hustling trying to bring in new people. Another great reason is that knowing how your business fits into your client goals can really help shape so much of what you do as a business owner. Have you ever thought about it that way? Kim? I was thinking about it. And I was like, You know what, I’ve never sat down and thought about how does my business fit into my client’s life goals, their goals for their animals, you know, because when I when I shifted that perspective in my brain, it was very eye opening like oh my god, I can be a part my little business can be a part of someone’s end game that to me then is going to shape as a business owner, everything about my messaging, my marketing, the types of products and services that I can provide, and can really help me become you no more targeted Kim did you just did you want to jump in there, it looked like you wanted to jump in there. 

Kimberly Beer  3:22  

I do. I 

Cara Taylor Swift  3:23  

go ahead

Kimberly Beer  3:24  

 and want I to say something here, because this is something that I run into a lot when I sit with entrepreneurs or when I work especially when I work through my business model canvas and life Canvas classes. I sit with entrepreneurs and we talk about their dreams. So for me in my business, I’m very, very cognizant of the fact that the person sitting across from me, my client, I am a big part, my business, what I do, really, really aims towards fulfilling their goal. But one of the shifts that I want to make for them is to help them understand that we get into business, we start businesses, we become entrepreneurs for ourselves. There’s a lot of reasons why we become entrepreneurs. And you and I have shared our reasons multiple times over this podcast. And we’ll probably continue to do so for the entire time we’re doing the podcast because deep down the reason I started a business was for my freedom. The reason I became an entrepreneur was because I have a value system that really drives me to make a difference for other people. And those are my reasons. But once I really start that business, once I give it to the public, once I put it out there for people to purchase, it’s no longer about me, it’s about them. It’s about the people that I serve, and it’s so critical and so important to understand who they are and how my business or my contribution is really in their lives. It’s it’s not about me, it’s about me them. And I think for a lot of people, entrepreneurs, when we start our businesses, we get into doing customer research because it’s it’s something to do before we get a lot of people into our business and, and it helps us understand and target our marketing and all of those really important reasons that we’re talking about here. But more than that, we sometimes drop off of doing it because we think we have it right. We think we got it, we know who those people are. But it is a constant and never ending improvement of understanding them that really makes the impact to our business and allows us to level up what we’re doing for them. There’s my two cents soapbox on why it’s so important to get to know people that you’re working for, and to understand how you interact in their lives and how you move their lives forward. And you know what, it’s so fulfilling as a business owner, because you get to see what the impact is that you’re making on one person’s life and many people’s lives. 

Cara Taylor Swift  4:46  

It’s so true. And I love that perspective that you come at it from the idea of a major part of your business, Kim is that business to business service that you provide, you quickly had to make that pivot from understanding how you fit into their end game, and like what their goals are like you had to get your mind there so quick. Whereas I think maybe an animal based business owner that’s geared towards working with clients directly that are out in the field trying to make their lives or their animals better, or to provide a service to an animal, I feel like you have to do an extra jump to get to that place where you’re thinking about how do you fit into their ultimate goals.

Kimberly Beer  6:39  

Absolutely!

Cara Taylor Swift  6:39  

 So yeah, that makes so much sense. And I hadn’t thought about it that way until you just said it. So I’m sure there’s other animal based business owners out there that are like you were there working with other business owners. So that is such a good point. And they’re probably ahead of the game like you are. So that’s really awesome. Another piece of this, I think is that if you don’t understand how your business fits into the goals of your client, you can really risk underperforming, if you don’t know your role in your clients lives. So you can really underperform if you don’t know what that expectation is. So this is really one way how you can show you understand your client’s pain points and show you have a solution to that pain point. So we’re always talking about like, you know, finding that pain point and how you’re going to fulfill that need. So this is another way for you to do that which ultimately, hopefully ends in and you maintaining that real strong relationship with your client, you keeping them as a client, them coming back to you over and over again, I also wanted to talk a little bit about how it really helps you keep up with your clients preferences. So one of the things I was thinking about is this whole issue of communication, I thought this was a great example, I’m a big person that likes to get people on the phone, like actually talk to them on the phone. But a lot of people prefer text messaging, and you know, social media, communication, messaging, DMS, that sort of thing. So a very simple example is literally just it helps you understand your clients preferences. So the example I’m giving is that as how people want to communicate, but the little things like that will continue to help endear you and help you understand your client better. So start thinking about those little areas where you can identify your clients preferences, this one I love, because it’s something that you know, we always think as the business owner, we’re the big brain of the business. And we’re the ones coming up with all the ideas. But the truth is, if you really understand your client’s needs, and you’re talking to them, you can get some great inspiration for new product and service development. So there’s lots of times when I’m talking with clients, and they’re telling me about some type of art that they want to create, or a place that they want to hang something and it inspires us to be creative. You know, we talk about things like hanging art in barns, for example, you know, what does that product look like? What does that service look like? Is that something that, you know, that’s something Kim and I have had lots of conversations about recently. So just trying to meet the needs of those clients. And then the last thing that I have here, you know, regarding ways to better understand your customers. And the reasons that’s important is it helps you understand the vocabulary of your consumer, the vocabulary of your client, it helps us get away from that business jargon that we use all the time, and instead better understand how your client or your potential client speaks about the topic. And there’s so many reasons this is important in terms of your marketing keywording search engines. I mean, just think of all the reasons that you need to know their jargon. There’s a lot of reasons for that. So talking to them, you know, understanding that vocabulary can be a big part of that. Do you have anything you want to add to this Kim? Before we jump into our big three,

Kimberly Beer  9:35  

I have one little thing I want to add about the new products and services that you can offer by getting to know your customers, because to me business is a continually evolving proposition, right? And when you really get to know your customers, it opens up opportunities you wouldn’t have had before and it opens up opportunities that you may have never even considered and in the process of really getting to understand your customers, you find a new pivot for your business that multiplies your revenue, or really fulfills your personal value system or really helps her I mean, it just like it’s hugely impactful that from where you are, you can’t see it until you mindfully take the time to get to know those customers. And you know, I’m all about creating new opportunities and finding new ideas. And and we were just having that discussion this morning. 

Cara Taylor Swift  10:35  

It’s like your favorite thing

Kimberly Beer  10:36  

It is my favorite thing. It hands down, it is my favorite thing. I love ideas, and I love playing with them. So how do you go about doing this? So this is the question we have for our big three to answer is what can you do as a business owner to really start to become mindful of who your customers are, and take an interest in that deeper understanding. So we broke it down into our three things, interview your existing clients, so the people that you currently have that you really want to get to know. Now, if you’re a business who’s just brand new, and you don’t have a lot of clients, then you’re going to have to sort of take a educated guess as to who those clients would be. And those are the people you’re going to apply that interview to. The second one is to really research your ideal customer, there are lots of places and ways that you can take advantage of data that’s out there. And you just need to participate in understanding your customer from that bigger perspective. And then how that also helps you see how they fit into the larger world and larger culture and and that helps you define your role a little bit better. And then the final piece of this is to study your competitors. Although we aren’t going to guide you to like being really intense or fixate on your competition, we’re not looking at ways in this particular conversation to do deep defining of your differences between you and your competitors. What we’re wanting to look at is we’re wanting to look at what other things are your customers running into out there in the world in your industry? And how does that affect their life and their decisions when it comes to your business? So let’s dive into first of all, interviewing your existing customers. And we have some ways that Cara is going to go over here real quick that you can get this process underway.

Cara Taylor Swift  12:31  

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Well, I think the first thing around interviewing is this is gonna sound like a no brainer, but you got to listen to people. I mean, like really listen to like, pull out. Everybody, everybody take a hard stop here, pull over, you have to pull out your listening skills, you have to do all the active listening stuff that there is and you have to really listen to people. It seems like stupid, simple, right? But I gotta be honest, most of us are pretty crappy at listening these days. I mean, we’re distracted, we’ve got so much going on. We’ve got our phones in our face and headphones in and we’re terrible at it. So really, if you’re going to delve into this take the time to actually listen to people, that’s probably the first place that you need to start. Second, you can do things like polls and surveys. I think everybody knows what a survey is and what a poll is. But you can create some for your business that are really pointed about topics that you’re interested in. You can start interviewing your existing clients or people that are potential consumers use those polls on them. The second piece is client interviews and you can ask those questions that get you answers that you really need to understand them make sure that your questions are open ended and give them plenty of time to respond. You don’t want to have those yes or no answers like you really need to hear the meat and potatoes

Kimberly Beer  14:47  

you do you do and and another tip. So back to the listening equation. Most of us listen to respond. We do not listen to absorb we’re worried again or self focused about, you know, how are we going to respond to what that person is saying. And what you need to do is slow that down and completely be present in the moment and make an effort to not talk. So there’s a author whose name escapes me. But he wrote Navajo mystery novels somewhere I, the back of my brain, it exists, but it’s gone. But anyway, in all of his novels, he talked about the fact that in Navajo culture, one of the things that is so important and kind of really rubs up against the rest of our American culture is that Navajo really sit and listen to somebody and they don’t talk right away. In other words, they allow there to be this silence between the two people when they’re having their conversation, because it’s a, it’s a point of respect, to let that person completely finish their thought. And if there’s something that they want to add, then they can add that before they’re interrupted by somebody else talking. And I try to channel that particular thought, when I’m doing customer interviews, I want to sit and be quiet and allow there to be some some quiet space, which is super hard for me, because I’m an extrovert, and I don’t like quiet, I want to fill it with my voice and my thoughts. But I have to pinch myself and bite my tongue. And I want to sit there but be completely open to them filling the silence themselves. Because there’s always gold in those moments, when somebody adds that additional thought, because that is usually really organic. It’s not a rehearsed or well thought out response. It’s something that they add organically. And for the business owner, there’s gold in that moment. Another thing, when you really open up that silent moment, when you really start to engage and listen to somebody is that you get what we talked about earlier is you get things in their language, the way they speak about it, the words that they use, the context that they use. And as business owners, we get, again, so absorbed in our own goals, our own way of thinking. And we’ve for many of us, we’ve leveled up on what our consumers talk about. In other words, they talk about it in a different way. So I always give the example of a doctor, when you talk to a doctor about a heart attack, they call it a myocardial infarction. We don’t run around saying that as humans, we say, you know, oh, my God, my cousin had a heart attack, they didn’t have a myocardial infarction. And if we worry about heart attacks in our family history, we don’t google myocardial infarction, we google heart attack. So you have to look at that in your own world and your clients world and understand that sometimes you have two different levels of conversation about the same topic. And so it’s important to get their language when you’re interviewing them. Again, that’s gold. And the best way to do this, because you will have bias that comes into the situation. In other words, you bring your opinion, and you will translate for that customer. If you’re just taking notes. My recommendation is that you record your customer interviews and translate them using a transcription software so that the words are written on a piece of paper. So you are not short handing into your own vocabulary, what your customers are saying. And the reason that this is so critical and so important, not only for you to have conversations with your customers that the level that they want to speak, but also for anything you write as far as marketing material that is digitally indexed, like in a search engine, because again, your customers don’t google myocardial infarction, they Google heart attack. So you got to learn how to speak their language.

Cara Taylor Swift  18:55  

I have never had anyone contact me saying that they’re looking for equine photography. 

Kimberly Beer  19:01  

No, 

Cara Taylor Swift  19:01  

it’s always I need pictures of my horses. 

Kimberly Beer  19:04  

Yeah. 

Cara Taylor Swift  19:04  

Or I’m looking for a horse photographer, you know. So that was huge for me when I started thinking about like that actual language that people are using to talk about the work that I do. And I definitely made some changes with the way that I communicate with the hashtags that I use, you know, with some of those words that are on my website, that sort of thing, even in the bios of like, my social bios and stuff like that, because those are the things that are going to be picked up in those searches. So yeah, no one has ever contacted me and said, I need I need an equine and equestrian photographer like it’s not happening. 

Kimberly Beer  19:37  

Yeah, they just don’t speak that way 

Cara Taylor Swift  19:38  

I need pictures of myself with my horses.

Kimberly Beer  19:40  

Yeah, I want a picture of my horse. It’s so true. And as business owners, we are so bad at ignoring that because we want to clean it all up and make it pretty and our customers are living in the reality of life, not the clean, pretty, like vision that sometimes we want to create as business owners, and we just we have to be mindful of that you don’t want to change everywhere on your website where it says horse photographer. But you definitely want to mention it throughout your site so that when people Google that or when they’re searching for it, and also that they feel comfortable in talking to you, that’s another thing too, the language that you use in how you represent yourself, yes, it should be professional, but it also should be assessable by your customers. And again, back to that doctor example. I don’t think there’s any of us that feel super comfortable with sometimes with the way our doctors talk to us, because they use language that we don’t understand. And it feels weird and strange. And you don’t want that relationship in your animal based business, you want to be able to have a comfortable relationship and a trustful relationship and something where your customers feel heard and understood. And that just goes a really long way into building your business. 

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So all of those things mean listen to your customers and, and efficient, you’re asking questions of them, do some boots on the ground, make an effort research in this area where you’re taking a little bit of time, maybe schedule it out every month and say, you know, I’m going to interview X number of people are I’m going to spend a couple of hours, you know, just focused on asking questions that help me better understand who my customers are. I want to make one other point here before we move on to the next topic. And that is when you’re interviewing, you want to make sure that you concentrate on finding out what your customers pain points are. Because we will always seek to get out of pain before we seek to create a growth opportunity or a gain. So people when they Google people, when they ask for recommendations, people, when they ask for referrals, all of those things, it usually is focused around a pain point, not a gain point. So understanding how your customers communicate about their pain points is crucial. And you inserting yourself into that conversation. So you got to get in their language. And from their perspective, what is the barrier that keeps them from achieving their goal, and then you have to figure out how to talk about that barrier in your marketing and in your sales materials, and then also look for opportunities that help break that barrier down for your new products and services. All right, I think we’re ready to move on to number two.

Cara Taylor Swift  23:03  

That’s right, we’re talking Okay, so we’ve talked about interviewing your existing clients, what about researching your ideal customer, that’s number two. That’s the next thing we have on here. And Kim is gonna be the one to talk to you about the resource library. And we talked about that before she loves her resource librarian. But I’m going to tell you, you know what, guys, sometimes a good social shadow is not a bad idea either. So I highly recommend a good social shadow, not social stalking. We’ve talked about that before on here. Social shadowing, 

Kimberly Beer  23:35  

We do not advocate for social stalking.

Cara Taylor Swift  23:37  

That’s right. We do not advocate for social stalking. Social shadowing however, there is no reason you can’t check in with folks in the horse community and just see what kind of conversations people are having? And are they having conversations about your business or other businesses that are related to yours are you starting to identify needs that they’re having, you can even do things like using the geo tags and doing location and finding people in your area that are potential customers potential consumers down the line and just start doing some low key social shadowing. So you can really kind of understand some of the things they’re dealing with on a day to day basis for those of you that need and desire and we highly recommend a more technical research aspect. Kim is going to talk to you about your resource librarian.

I am going to talk to you about resource librarians. But before I go there, I’m going to add a little bit of something to this social shadowing. So I’m in the midst of hopefully a project I will finish which is writing a little quick book on how to be a better salesperson because I see

You will finish it! 

Kimberly Beer  24:41  

I will finish it I do a lot of starting of books and not a lot of finishing of books, but we’re going to we’re going to make this one short, sweet and easy to get ahold of. So in my outline that I’m currently writing on. I tell people there’s some basis for conversations that you can have around sales and one of those places that you can start engaging people in a sales conversation is establishing common ground. And when you social shadow people and you get to understand them, you can establish that common ground really easily one of the things that I noticed that Cara does in and she is an outstanding salesperson, by the way, and don’t ever let her tell you differently, she rocks it at the sales, but she’s really good at that social shadowing in taking a look at a person’s profile, getting to understand their interests, understand who their horses names are, she knows what kind of breeds they have, as far as before, she even probably picks up the phone to call them back.

Well, I’m looking for a common connection. I mean, that’s part of being a good salesperson,

It is, it is. 

Cara Taylor Swift  25:04  

Looking for common ground. 

Kimberly Beer  25:45  

So establishing that common ground really makes you very personable as a salesperson, and it makes the person on the other end feel heard and appreciated and respected. So that’s the type of social shadowing we’re talking about. Here, we’re not talking about just going and looking at people’s profiles and gathering data, although that’s a good thing to do. But we’re talking about seeking to really understand it at a leveled up way. And it just it helps all the way around. Now for the bigger pictures for the huge amounts of data where you can look at how your customers fit into this big picture, that resource librarian is absolutely key. And I always call them the special unicorn of librarians, you will need to go to your library and ask them if they have a resource librarian and where that particular special unicorn of a librarian tends to hide out. But they really are very good at helping you understand in context, the bigger numbers when it comes to your customers, one of the things that a lot of new entrepreneurs are tasked with doing is figuring out their market size. And resource librarians can help you do that. But they can go way beyond that in helping you understand the data and parse that data from all of these research studies that have been done all of this information that has been collected the census data that’s available to you, as a business owner to use to really understand the large movements of a community of people or an industry or a specific niche that you’re working in or demographic that you want to understand better. So seeking them out is fantastic. I don’t think that there’s any of them that will charge you for their services. It’s part of what the library provides. I can’t speak of that all over the country. But I know the resource librarians in Kansas City are available to you as a public service that is provided by the library. So it’s not an expense. And it is always an enlightening activity to go. And if you’re like I don’t know when to ask a resource librarian, that’s okay. They’re really friendly people. And you just need to go and say, hey, somebody said I should maybe look into working with a resource librarian around my small business and trust me, they will start asking the questions that need to happen in order for them to find the best solution to help you with. So definitely check out your resource librarian.

Cara Taylor Swift  28:17  

I’m totally nerding out right now. Because that sounds really fun to me.

Kimberly Beer  28:22  

You are gonna go find your local resource librarian.

Cara Taylor Swift  28:26  

Yeah, like it just sounds fun. It just kind of sounds fun.

Kimberly Beer  28:30  

I miss libraries as a regular basis. I mean, I do a lot of zoom teaching for the libraries in Kansas City. But I love going in and walking through the stacks of books, you want to talk about a nerdy moment,

Cara Taylor Swift  28:41  

I have a nine year old, I still get to go all the time. 

Kimberly Beer  28:44  

I love that!

Cara Taylor Swift  28:45  

We have lots of reasons to go. So I’m in all the time our little local one,

Kimberly Beer  28:48  

I love the smell of library books. Why is that? It’s just a weird thing. It brings back so many wonderful feelings from my childhood.

Cara Taylor Swift  28:56  

It brings you back to your childhood. 

Kimberly Beer  28:57  

Yeah, it does, it does. Alright, so let’s talk about studying your competitors.

Cara Taylor Swift  29:02  

Okay, so big three. Number three is to study your competitors. So the first thing I want to say is you don’t need to fixate on your competition. But spending some time watching how your competitors deliver on the pain points of their clients can really inspire new ways for you to assist your clients and better meet their needs. Sometimes you’re having a struggle and you’re not really sure how to meet a need, and maybe somebody in the next state over is meeting that need well, and they’re doing it in a way that might work for your clients. So we’re not advocating for folks to go out there and copy somebody else’s business practice, but certainly be inspired by the things that other businesses are doing. You also on the flip side can understand, you know, is this an idea that I have that is it a good idea? Like is someone else already doing this? And was it successful for them? Was it unsuccessful for them? What kind of hang ups that they have along the way? Is it getting good traction with their clients so you can kind of on the flip side of that figure out something that you want Do is a good idea or a bad idea. It can also help you understand some of the gaps in the products and services that exist in the industry that you’re in, you know, maybe there’s a place that is void of services and products, and you can really niche into that world and make yourself the go to person or the go to business in that area.

Kimberly Beer  30:17  

Absolutely, Cara. I love that competitive research, I think is an ongoing activity. It’s kind of like the customer interviews. It’s sometimes when we’re new businesses, when we’re brand new, and we’re writing our business plan, and we’re looking at our SWOT analysis. I love that SWOT stands. For those of you who don’t know the acronym, it stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. And it usually has to do a lot with this competitive research component of taking a look at how we fit into the larger picture of our industry and the customers that we’re going to serve. But usually the competitive research ends there. And we don’t tend to go back and do a lot of it unless it’s probably motivated by a competitor starting to step into what we perceive as our territory. And then we all the sudden get really interested in what they’re up to. So ongoing competitive research is really important on multiple levels. But it is really important on the level of understanding what the opportunities are out there that your clients are seeing that really affects your conversation with your clients, especially sales conversations, as well as service conversations. And it also really should affect the direction and how you brand your business. There are times that we want to be like our competitors, because we want to offer a competitive service or product. And then there are ways that we want to differentiate so that consumers know that we are the right choice for their business, or that the competitor is the right choice. I firmly believe there’s room in this world for any type of business that wants to build in it. And that the differences come down to branding and experience just those little details that make your business the perfect choice over somebody else’s business for that individual. It’s another reason why we really want to step into knowing our customers well is it helps us define the commonalities across our entire customer base, that really help us differentiate ourselves from market competition, and from the other choices, both direct and indirect that our customers have when spending the dollars that they would spend with us. So making competitive research, kind of part of your activities, again, not advocating that you fixate on it. But that you just simply mindfully remember that you need to take a look at your competition. And you need to approach it not from the I don’t like this business, I want to make sure I beat them to I want to seek to understand what makes my business different? What are my clients seeing when they go to this competitor? And then how do I position my business effectively? Think of it like a horse race, we’re all in the horse race, we have the starting gate, we’re running and you know what we’re winning for that customer depends on how we position our horse in the pack of other horses. I still want it out you for doing the horse race motion.

Jazz is earning her money on this particular episode. You should have seen it jazz Cara was in the horse race. Okay,

Cara Taylor Swift  33:47  

okay, that’s all we’ve got for you guys today. So today, we gave you guys a little bit of information regarding three ways you can better understand your customers. We started out by talking about first of all, why is this even important? Why do you need to understand your your existing clients or your potential consumers? And there’s a lot of reasons for that. And we hope that that inspires you guys to jump into spending a little more time understanding your customers. So the big three, number one, interview your existing clients, they really are the place you need to start. They’re the the folks that have been through your service. They’re the ones that you’ve identified have a need, you already know they have a pain point and you’re in the process of trying to answer that pain point. The second research your ideal customer, Kim talked a little bit about that unicorn in the library, the resource librarian, you know, that’s a great way to do that. So think about ways that you can research your ideal customer. And then finally study those competitors. Don’t fixate on them, but spend some time looking at what they’re doing and how they’re meeting their client needs. And see how that inspires the work that you’re doing. So we really hoped you guys enjoyed this episode, and we’ll be back next Tuesday. 

Kimberly Beer  34:58  

See Y’all then!

Jaz  34:59  

Thanks for listening to this episode of The Business Animal. Be sure to subscribe so you never miss an episode. And if you learned something today, leave us a review. To learn more Find us at TheBusinessAnimal.com we’d love to hear from you. Until next time, keep your business well trained with The Business Animal