In the last post, I talked about how the job of a business is not to satisfy customer needs, but to create them. Specifically, to create compelling needs.
Compelling is a difficult to term to define, though. How do you know if the need you create will be compelling enough to get your customer to do business with you?
Truth is, you can’t know for sure what people will finding compelling – not until people are buying. But there are methods for making educated guesses with high probability of success. There are three methods for doing this:
Method 1: Study your target market
Choose people to follow. Look at their lives. What problems do they encounter? What would make their lives easier? What do they complain about? How do they talk? How do they deal with the difficulties or annoyances they face in life?
Jot all this down and set up a business around an idea that will give people a compelling need to do business with you.
Method 2: Micro-test
Select a target market and brainstorm a ton of ideas. Then start doing some testing. Put out Facebook or Google ads. Show ten friends. Go on discussion boards or reddit and put your idea out there. Try to get reactions, conversions, subscriptions.
Take all the data. Choose the tests that got you the best results, and form a business around that.
Method 2: Scratch your own itch
You’ll never really know your customers, but you can know yourself. Ask yourself: What product or service can I create that would be so compelling that I would want to use it?
Keep asking yourself this question until you come up with a few ideas. Then create that product or service and put it out there. Chances are that someone else would also want to use it.
Other thoughts
There are really only two reasons why we do anything:
- Reduce uncertainty. Notice I didn’t say pain. Some people will accept pain, even seek it, if it gives them certainty. But people in general cannot stand uncertainty and try to avoid it – unless they are able to…
- Increase opportunity. The opportunity for reward, for pleasure, for happiness, for peace, for relief.
If you have a business that focuses on reducing uncertainty and/or increasing opportunity for pleasure, then that’s compelling. The trick is knowing specifically what will reduce uncertainty/increase opportunity for your customer. For that, see methods 1, 2, and 3 above.