Episode 16:
How To Uncover Customer Pain Points
From this episode:
What are Pain Points?
Pain Points are problems that drive customers nuts. Simply put.
We all have those pesky little things in our business that drive us nuts, don’t we? It could be something like outdated software or tools, no access to a step-by-step guide on how-to do something we just learned or purchased, it could be inefficiencies like duplicate efforts from sales and marketing with tracking prospects and customers – in separate databases or spreadsheets.
Essentially pain points are the things that create inconveniences, inefficiencies and lack of progress in our business and our customer’s business.
And those are the things that not only drive us nuts but we want to fix so we can move full steam ahead.
So how do we help our customers hone in and identify what their particular pain points are?
Start with asking "Why?" Here is one example:
You’re a business owner and say: “I need employees”. Is this a pain point? No. It’s the solution to the pain point or problem.
To find out what the pain point is, ask probing questions like “what do you need employees for?” and you'll get a deeper, more informed response
“Onboarding new customers is taking longer than I expected and communicated to my customers. I can’t keep up with the process so I need to hire some people.” That’s the pain point!
If you want to dig further, ask “What contributed to this problem?” They may respond “Business is just booming!” which is the root cause. A good cause but the root for why this company needs employees.
The pain point in this example is “Onboarding new customers is taking longer than I expected and communicated to my customers”.
The prospect already knows the solution is “I need employees” so what they really need help with is identifying what type of employees they need to hire and how they are going to hire.
Without knowing the root cause is “business is booming” you may assume that new employees meant marketing or sales people. But if business is booming, their marketing and sales are already working well for them!
They need operational, technical or service employees who are good with processes, systems and working with customers.
See how knowing the root cause helps better understand what the prospect really needs VS what they THINK they need?
I review additional examples in the podcast. In fact, I most of this episode is examples :)
Questions that will help you start a conversation and lead to responses that you're likely going to need to ask "Why" or at least ask follow-up questions to their responses to get to the real pain point and root cause.
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What’s going well in your business right now? How do you know?
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What’s your biggest obstacle – what's holding you back from that next level of growth?
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What takes up the most time in your day?
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What are your customers saying you are doing right?
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What are they saying you need to improve on or are doing wrong?
Show Notes:
“How to Create Content Based on Your Customer’s Pain Points” Guide - Want to review it before it is available to everyone? You'll also be the first to receive the final version once it's ready by June 15, 2019!
This Guide includes how Marketing and Sales work together to uncover pain points then develope content to prospects in your market who are experiencing pain points. Click “Customer Pain Points Guide!”.
Do you have ave a separate Marketing and Sales team? Take this Marketing and Sales Assessment to find out where to begin.
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