The Perspective Map has been a tool I’ve been using with clients for years. We’ve had great success applying their findings to marketing campaigns, messaging, sales pages, and product development. I personally have used it to develop the ideas and marketing behind products & programs like The Art of Earning, The Art of Growth, and 10ThousandFeet.
It’s no surprise then that it’s my go-to tool. And I hope it will become yours.
Now that you have this tool, I want to give you three practical ways to use it. (And if you haven’t gotten The Perspective Map yet, you can grab it here.)
The Perspective Map gives you a way to record your observations and inferences about how your customers see their current need or desire. Once you’ve got it all figured out, here’s how you can apply it immediately:
1) Identify their current situation.
Customers and prospects desperately want to know that you “get them.” Part of this is being able to communicate that you understand where they’re at, right now. You see their struggle. You hear their questions. You share their desires.
Whether you’re a life coach, a web developer, or a jewelry designer, you want to be able to say to your customers, “I see you.” Take what you’ve recorded in the Say, Do, Think, and Feel boxes and use it to say exactly that on your sales pages or product descriptions.
Try using phrases like, “You want to…” or “You feel like…”
Don’t be afraid to get specific and describe their circumstances with details. Don’t be afraid that the details you’ve come up with don’t apply to some customers. Even details that are a little off help others see themselves in the circumstances you’re describing.
Lisa Claudia Briggs, a 10ThousandFeet alumna, used The Perspective Map to create a brilliant description of her Most Valued Client’s current situation. She works with women who feel things deeply and want to lose all kinds of weight. She writes of the women she works with:
- You consistently bump up against relationships that drain you, and feel as if you are giving (and giving) without getting much back.
- You find it hard to express what you want or be heard in relationships.
- You turn to food or other addictive patterns to soothe yourself when relationships let you down.
It’s not about preying on pain but it is often about acknowledging it. It can also be about acknowledging frustration, inconvenience, or unmet desire. Any way you slice it, identifying your customer’s current situation is a great way for them to feel seen and understood.
2) Discover your client’s core motivators & values.
Take a look at your Map again. What values or motivating factors are your customers hinting at? Maybe they want to be seen as more professional. Maybe they want to feel beautiful. Maybe they want to feel free from outside expectations.
Drill down until you can identify what is driving them to find solutions.
You can use these motivating factors in your content strategy, in your branding, and in your messaging. Your product spread should emphasize these values and motivators.
An example of this in my own business is my emphasis on “impact.” My Most Valued Customers want to make a good living and build successful businesses, yes. But they also want to feel like they are positively impacting the world, their communities, their customers, and their families. Making an impact is their motivating factor. It’s why they wake up every morning and it’s why they’ve built their businesses.
Everything I do or create reflects that motivating factor, making it easier for prospects to align with whatever strategy, tactic, or idea I’m sharing that day.
3) Pinpoint the results they’re looking for.
The flip side of describing your customers’ current circumstances is pinpointing the future they’re aiming for. In other words, you need to know the results they’re looking for.
Catch that? The important results are the ones your customers are looking for, not the results you think your product or service provides. Don’t get me wrong, I know those are awesome results but if they’re not lined up with what your customers are looking for then your customers won’t feel drawn to buying your product.
Often, knowing and communicating the results customers are looking for is difficult for my clients. Again, we break out The Perspective Map. This time, instead of looking for the “now,” we look for the “then.” We pull out the pieces of information that tell us what customers are trying to accomplish, what they really value, and what they just want to be easier.
Brigitte Lyons, PR & media strategist, does a great job of this when describing her services. She could list “learn how to perfect your pitch” or “identify your key media message” as results since those are indeed results of her service. But instead, she goes for the big results her clients are looking for–that she also provides through her service:
- Clients and customers clamoring for your work.
- Event organizers paying you to speak to large groups.
- Journalists and bloggers and TV producers emailing you for quotes, photos and features.
If we’re brainstorming product ideas, we use this information to create a list of results this product needs to accomplish for them. If we’re brainstorming for a sales page, we turn this information into a hypothesis and a bullet point list of outcomes. If we’re brainstorming for marketing & outreach, we turn a specific result into an optin incentive, an ad, or a video idea.
Your turn.
Whenever I’m feeling stuck about or trying to evaluate a business idea, I pull out The Perspective Map. That means I’m constantly coming back to you, my customer, and co-creating with you at every step of my business’s marketing, sales, or product evolution. So the next you think, “How’d she know I needed that?” You’ll know.
