As a business owner, you might have what seems like a great service to offer your clients. It’s easy to think about the benefits you could offer your clients. But have you stopped to think about the needs of your clients? Do they really need what you’re offering?
A really good question to ask yourself is, what problem am I solving?
Understand The Problem
If you’re clear about the problem you’re solving you’re better equipped to determine if there are people that really want that problem solved. That question can save you lots of time and money. No matter how great your idea might seem, if it isn’t solving a problem that real people want to be solved it’s not that valuable.
Our Own Example
For example here at Smitten, we design websites that help professional business owners stand out from the crowd so they can attract more of their ideal clients. But it’s likely that’s not the real problem that business owners are thinking about. Most business owners might think they want a new website because it will help them get more business. But we’ve learned that there are a few real problems that prevent business owners from redesigning their websites.
Here’s a real problem that real people think when it comes to considering a new website. That problem is that they don’t want to have to micromanage their web design project. This is a concern because they’ve had to do it on past projects. As a business owner, you know business owners are busy and they need to take care of their own business while a professional crafts their website for them. They don’t want to have to micromanage a web design project. That’s not their strength. They want to hire an expert that can do the thinking, planning, designing and implementation for them. While keeping the needs of their clients front and center.
Well, we address the problem of having to micromanage your projects and point out that you won’t need to do that if you hire us. We also design our websites to help these business owners attract more of their ideal clients. That’s just not the pain point that we address because it’s there is often another pain point keeping folks from working with a design professional.
Listen To Your Clients
How do we know this is a problem that real people care about? We know it’s a real problem because we’ve heard it directly from our own clients. We suggest that when talking with your clients you listen to the concerns that they share. It’s likely that you will learn about some of the underlying problems that concern your clients. This will help you create solutions that specifically solve your clients’ problems. It also lets you talk about those hidden problems.
When clients see you writing or hear you talking about those inner pain points they are more likely to believe you’re the one to help them.
Wrapping it Up
Again why does this matter? Why do you want to know that real people are thinking about this problem? Because if they aren’t you will have a difficult or impossible time selling your new offering. So take the time to make sure whatever solution your offering is really addressing problems real people are thinking about.
Photo Credit: Planning is great. But we better ensure we are planning to solve a problem real people are thinking about. Thanks, José Alejandro Cuffia.