Sep 13 2010
The Customer’s Perspective
How you see
your business
is not how
others see it!
We see what we want to see. We hear what we want to hear. We feel what we want to feel.
How others experience your business and your business message has almost nothing to do with you. It’s all about selective perception.
Pretend your business
is sponsoring a special event . . . a charity fundraising reception, for example. Your biggest customer has donated a pile of merchandise for the feature event drawing. Your assistant has done all the decorations. Your major suppliers have donated hor’ devours and beverages, the local newspaper and TV news reporters are covering the reception. The Mayor is there.
Selective perception
dictates that your biggest customer heads directly to check out the donated prizes when she comes through the door (and to make sure the reporters get the charitable company’s name and address right), your assistant will be fussing with the ribbons and streamers and balloons, your major suppliers will head straight for the bar and foodservice trays (along with the media people who are only there for the freebies), and the Mayor is working the room for votes.
Most attendees are there to be seen.
Getting people to attend an event that they’ve contributed to in some way is easy. Getting them to pay attention to your message and the reason YOU wanted them to be there is not. And the people representing the charity think every one’s there to spotlight and assist their needs. But reality is that everyone who attends, attends for their own reasons, and searches out their own payoffs.
No, it’s not being cynical; it’s being honest. Most people will never admit that they go to or participate in a charity event for any reason other than to help the charity, but the truth is there’s something more in it for them. Nothing wrong with that because –in the end– the charity benefits, but don’t kid yourself into believing that others see things the same ways you do.
The charitable event is merely an example. Others fail to see your perspective in the ways you represent your products and services. Probably 100% of customers and prospects could care less about all the great product and service features you embrace. The “What’s in it for me” benefits are all that really matter.
Are you triggering their emotional
buying motives…or yours?
In fact, NO ONE sees things the same ways you do. No ones sees and hears and processes things in exactly the same ways as anyone else. The perceptual filters in every brain vary with age, health, environment, experience, and circumstances among other factors…and they can change at the drop of a hat.
Some people still walk around blaming a bad upbringing or poor potty training as reasons for certain shortcomings or personality defects. They don’t see the world (or your business) the same way you do.
Well, that may all strike you as fairly depressing news, but there’s nothing depressing about having a heightened awareness of the fact that you need to reach customers and prospects with the sets of words that appeal most to THEM, not you. That’s important stuff!