Increase sales by clearly understanding what problems your customers want you to solve for them

The core question to answer with any product is:  What problem is the person buying from you trying to solve?   Every business owner must answer this question with precision or risk losing the sale.

Every time you help people buy the things they need and provide products they value, you will be successful.  Businesses fail when they don’t truly understand what features consumers value, how much they are willing to pay for those features, and what they are willing to trade to get what they value.

Knowing what problem your customer is trying to solve is the key to providing products and services for which your customers will pay a fair market price.  Not knowing what problem they are trying to solve means that you will never know how much specific product features are valued.  Fail to know the value of your product features that solve your customer’s problems means you are at risk of either “under-selling” your product or “over-spending” on its production.  Either way, you won’t earn the profits you should.

Answering the what question—identifying the features your customers value most—in solving their problems enables you to charge a price that earns a profit for what you do.  Know this with confidence, and you are much more likely to have a profitable business model.

You know what problems you solve when you can show a solution to a problem your customers aren’t even aware they had.

When your understanding of the application of your product or service leads the consumer to connect your solution to a problem they weren’t even aware they had, you know what problems your product solves.  For example, a person may be annoyed by aching feet or garage doors that don’t close correctly and not think about a solution or that things could be any other way.  Yet when you help them understand that they no longer have to be annoyed or irritated, they are likely to stop going blindly along, cursing the door, or limping on their sore feet because you helped them see a better way.

Consider the reason that people buy drill bits: to drill holes. It isn’t even the hole they are seeking.  It is the cupboard they are hanging in the garage.  What they want is to be able to store stuff in a cupboard.  They need to hang a cupboard that stores the stuff requiring holes to be drilled to do this.  To drill the hole, they need the right size bit.

Understanding this need flow is how you successfully shape your marketing mix decisions involving price, promotion, place, and packaging.

Unique benefits are derived from the unique features of your products and services used to solve a customer problem.

Knowing what problem you solve for your customers lays the foundation for identifying the benefit your customer derive from buying from you.  Too often, the people in a business get enamored with the physical features of the product they make and sell, leading them to lose sight of the benefits those features are intended to provide in solving a customer problem.

Let’s go back to the drill bit example to appreciate this fundamental point.  The holes, the bit drills, initiate the purchase, not the bit itself.  A product’s sale is defined by the problem it solves. The key take-away for unlocking this principle is talking to your customers to understand what problems your products or services help them solve.  Your goal is first to identify what is the equivalent to the “hole” for them and then come up with the perfect “drill bit.”

The concept of benefits and features is often confusing for many in business.  A simple trick is to state something about your product and then ask, “So that ‘X’ can happen.”  The “X” represents what the feature is supposed to do.  For example, people buy a ¼” drill bit so that they can make a ¼” hole to put a ¼” screw into so they can attach something requiring a ¼” screw.  They don’t buy the drill bit to own a ¼” drill bit.

Don’t let your operations people distract you with their excitement for the great features they have built into your products and services.  Nor do you want your marketing and salespeople to show you how they have turned your product features into benefits.  Focus everyone in your business on helping your customers buy what they need from you by clearly communicating from the customer perspective, not your company, what problem a purchase from you solves.

Do you want help speaking to what problems you solve?

Click here to schedule a time to talk with one of our marketing and sales experts on how best to articulate what problem(s) you solve for the people who buy from you to unlock how you can sell more at higher profits.