Do people REALLY know what they want? And moreover, can the articulate their desires?

Henry Ford famously said... “If I’d asked people what they wanted, they’d have said faster horses.”
When it comes to marketing your services, your prospects indecision can be a HUGE hurdle.
Because if they don’t know what they want, or how to describe it, how do you sell it to them?
Now this might seem to COMPLETELY contradict my last post. Last time around, I postulated the most effective way to establish your core services, as well as evaluate current offerings, and develop new services, is simply to ask your clients and prospects what they want.

Survey Data Can Make Marketing Magic

Specifically I extolled the virtues of conducting surveys with ideal prospects and current clients to gather data on their needs and wants. And in turn explained how this data provides the perfect marketing platform. Because if you know what your ideal clients want, you simply promote solutions that fulfill their needs.

But Surveys Only Work if You Ask the RIGHT Questions

If those very same clients and prospect don’t REALLY know what they want, what good is asking them? Well, as you may also recall I closed my last post with the dire warning that the quality of the data you gather, and ultimately the success of your survey, hinges upon asking the right questions. I believe the phrase I used was: Garbage in, garbage out.

So now the question is: How do you ask the right questions?

To answer this question, again I direct your attention to Ryan Levesque’s awesome as all get out bestselling business book, Ask. (We can be confident Ask is awesome as all get-out because I’ve now referenced it two posts in a row).
In Ask, Leveque divides his survey process into four step:

The Deep Dive Survey

The purpose of the deep dive is to identify your clients and prospects primary areas of concern, which Levesque refers to as “buckets.” These buckets are sub-segments, or niches in your market.
The Secret to Creating Effective Deep Dive Survey Questions:
First and foremost, Leveque warns against coming right out and asking clients and prospects what they want. That question is simply to nebulous and indeterminate.
Imagine being asked “what’s your perfect day?” There are an endless string of potential scenarios that might qualify as a “perfect day.” And this sort of insurmountable scope immediately puts people on the spot. They don’t know how to form any sort of clear or concise response.
Instead, Leveque’s recommends asking people what they don’t want. What isn’t working? And how is that impacting your life or business or whatever problem you’re trying to solve. One of the most effective approaches is asking you audience “What’s you biggest challenge surrounding situation X?”
But also Leveque cautions against being too specific with this question. If you narrow the field too far, you’re in danger of planting a seed in the respondents mind. And this can color their answers, and muddy your response data.
For example, if you’re an accountant and you ask “what’s your biggest challenge surrounding managing your business’s finances,” you’ll get a much broader response than if you ask “what’s your biggest challenge surrounding managing your taxes.”

The Micro-commitments Survey

Once you’ve defined your “buckets” they should become part of your larger marketing process. Whether you’re generating new leads or on-boarding new clients, you now have set method that enables you to identify needs and wants.
Picking up the accountant example again, you can ask prospects and new clients: What’s your biggest challenge with…

• Managing month payroll?
• Tracking expenses?
• Tax planning?

With the responses to these micro-commitments, you can tailor your marketing to address your audience’s specific “buckets.”

The Why Do You Hate Me Survey

Let’s say you run a survey. A prospect or client responds, and you drop them into a micro-commitment bucket. But then they never hire you.
There could be a variety of reasons why a prospect never follows through. But the only way to find out why is to ASK. Leveque found that one of the most effective ways to motivate a response is to reach out again, in tongue in cheek manner, and ask “why do you hate me?”
You might not use those exact words. And if you do, you should definitely temper your language a touch. If you use the phrase in your email subject line, consider including an emoticon that offers some levity. Leveque suggests something like… Why do you hate me??? ;-)
Or you might include something in your message intro like… “Of course I know you don’t hate me, but…”
The “do you hate me survey” is an attempt to discover where things went awry, in order to make your marketing “iterative.” In other words, to change and improve your approach.
In the “do you hate me survey,” you might simply ask why they didn’t hire you…

• Was there something off-putting about your approach?
• Was the timing just off?
• Are they no longer in the market for your services?
• Can they no longer afford your services?

The Pivot Survey

After you’ve completed the first three surveys, you’re still likely to have a fist full of people who never hired you and never responded to any of your queries. So what the heck do you do with these people? Are they just a big bowl full of lost causes, better excised from you prospect list?
Not quite yet. This is where Leveque’s recommends employing the Pivot Survey. The Pivot is your last ditch attempt to reach these people.
Leveque frames this survey as the “I’ve asked you about x, y and z, but you didn’t respond. What should we talk about now?” survey.
Questions might look like…

• Should I “lose your number?” (Again tongue in cheek)
• Should I get back to you at later date?
• Are my services just too expensive?
• Are my services within you budget, but do you actually need more than I’m offering?

What Questions Would You Ask?

Clearly the “Deep Dive Survey” is the best place to start. So if you were conducting your own deep dive, what questions would you ask? Swing by my Google+ page and share!