The basics of your business are the answers to these questions?
The best input is from your listening to your target market. Your customers will tell you if there is enough demand to sustain your business, and you can ask them how much they are willing to spend to obtain your product or service. Once you know that there is a demand for your product, you can determine pricing, marketing strategy, the best location, and fine-tune other business strategies and logistics.
Always remember that customer engagement is futile if you do not listen attentively, objectively, and subsequently, ask good questions to get the most value from what they tell you.
We have a tendency to place more value on information that supports our assumptions or viewpoint and give less credit to information that contradicts what we believe. For that reason, we sometimes either ignore or refrain from engaging with prospective customers in case they might disagree with our business notions. Confirmation bias can prevent you from really hearing your customers, which can lead to poor business decisions. Sometimes you have to consciously seek out and listen to views and opinions that do not match your own.
An example of confirmation bias: An entrepreneur is keen to open a restaurant in an heritage building located in the community where he was raised and went to school. His affinity for the place drives his ambitions. When he speaks to people about his idea and they give him positive feedback, it confirms his feelings for the place and he values what they say and believes it to be wholehearted support for his plan. When locals voice their concerns or bring up potential problems, he has a tendency to dismiss their concerns as inconsequential or unjustified because of his bias toward opening the restaurant in that location, no matter what. Both types of customer feedback are valuable to him advancing his business decisions, but he ignores the constructive reviews and only pays attention to the feedback that agrees with his supposition.
Effect feedback comes from engaging with a good representation of your target market.
Engagement does not come if all you seek are yes or no answers. Draft good questions that cause people to want to share their opinions and feelings about their needs and how their needs may satisfied through your product or service.
Connection with people may take time and getting good answers requires patience. This is not a process you want to rush.
To effectively obtain the best customer feedback, pose your question or scenario and listen conscientiously and dispassionately. If you are unable to be objective do that engage an impartial third party to do it for you.
Everything! Absolutely every bit of information you learn from your prospective customers is valuable. After carefully listening to them, you may learn that what they actually want is not the same thing as what you proposed to sell them. Your target audience will give you a clearer idea of what they will actually spend money on, and their feedback could send you in an innovative direction or save you from a business nightmare.
Always listen! Listen to everything. Listen, before you take the plunge of opening a business. After you are up and running, use your website, email list or social media to ask for lots of feedback from your first customers so you can measure what you are doing and adjust accordingly. Start conversations with your customers about their needs when you see them face to face in your shop or at your event booth. Spend time on the phone with clients. Ask questions, seek opinions.
You’ll never know when a suggestion will be helpful. When a customer suggests faster delivery time or clearly written usage instructions those are useful ideas that can help boost sales. They might even give you new ideas to expand your product line or grow your business. Just remember to listen.
As a small business owner
you should assess whether you are sourcing enough good ideas from outside your
immediate think group. The more ideas generated, the greater the chance of
finding innovative ways to combine them into something new.
Inspiration can strike when you least expect it, but that is rather an inefficient way to drive innovation and creativity. Want a do-it-yourself approach to decision-making and problem solving? Try one of these brainstorming techniques to develop your ideas.
Professionalism is what you do visibly that impresses and inspires others and what you do behind the scenes – integrity, self-regulation, conscientiousness – that allows you to fulfill your role to the best of your ability and gives you a sense of satisfaction and self-worth.
When you are overworked and under pressure, try these two super easy-to-implement strategies to fend off procrastination. They can be completed quickly and more importantly they work best to set the tone for an excellent day.
Kindness should extend to our colleagues and work family. In the workplace, kindness is a catalyst that helps to build trust, drives morale, improves well-being, engagement, and productivity. Kindness makes you feel good and that is a good way to spend your day.
As a professional, you want to get the job done – and done well. You do what is necessary to produce results that exceed expectations. You recognize whatever you do to keep advancing personally and professionally also helps your business to thrive.
