What do you have that the competition doesn’t?? Part 2, External Analysis, Option 2 By Becky Amble ?2022

The other way to collect information in your external analysis is to do what is called primary or original research. This is where you write a questionnaire and interview people. In this case you will interview customers. And as a reminder, the First Step was to do an internal analysis about your biz. Answer questions like: What makes our company different or unique in what we do/sell? What makes our products or services different or unique? What do we do better than anybody else in the marketplace? Step 2 is to do this from the customer’s perspective. Option 1 in doing this is to brainstorm internally by putting yourself in your customer’s shoes. Option 2, is to interview customers and that’s what this article is about.

My first suggestion is to get professional help to do this step. I know that might not fit everyone’s budget. Even if you don’t hire someone to do the work. See if you can get someone with this expertise to at least sit down and talk to you to make sure you have a solid plan. As simple as this process seems, it can easily get derailed.

All right, for your DIYers, let’s getting started! Some of this material was shared in the previous article so you might already know it. If not, it is here.

Your goal

Your goal is to find out what your customers and prospects know and think about your company. You want to then see how that compares with the messages and communications you use. And then you want to make sure you identify the customer priorities.

The questions

For consistency, ask the same questions you asked in the internal analysis although you need to tweak them a bit.

Below are the questions I suggested in step one. If you used different questions, use them in this step.

1.????What makes our company different or unique in what we do/sell?

2.????What makes our products or services different or unique? (If you offer a product and follow up with service aspects, do two questions. One for each: What makes our product different or unique? What makes our service different or unique? In this case it is mostly service after the sale.)

3.????What do we do better than anybody else in the marketplace?

Often, when interviewing people, you change how you ask the questions. Typically, this is to put a passive voice in beginning of the question. Something like, “When you think about our company, what makes us different or unique in what we do?” See the difference? It’s a subtle difference yet works better in making them comfortable and getting the info you want.

Identify who to talk to

Once you have your questions ready you need to identify who you are going to talk to. That varies with consumer and business products and is its own discussion. Basically, make a random selection, something like every 5 customers on your list. Of course, it depends on how many customers you have. Just make it random and avoid only calling customer who you know “love” your company, products or services. Interview a minimum of 15-20 people. Keep in mind with consumer products you generally need to talk to more people than in B2B.

Write a short email introduction

Once you have your list of people, write a short email that tells them what you are doing. Maybe a bit of the “why” and that you will share your findings. Keep in mind when you share the findings, you decide what is appropriate to share.?

Conduct the interviews

I suggest phone interviews. In your intro email you tell them you will be calling. You may also tell them that you have “X” number of questions, whatever that is. As we have discussed, it will likely be 3-5. You may also tell them that the questions may sound similar, and that the questions get at slightly different information.

Those you interview, will want to know how long it will take so our scripts typically say something like this, “It will take about 10 minutes, depending on how much you want to share. I’m available to talk with you longer if you want to share more thoughts with me.”

Customer priorities

OK, just when you thought you were done. You also want to determine what is the customers #1 for each question, so ask them to pick their top 3 for each question. If they put them in order, that is ideal.

Compare internal and external results

Once you have the info from your internal and external analysis you will compare them to determine if your messaging is hitting the customers’ hot buttons. Then comes the time to check-out the competition. You will answer similar questions for your competition when you do that analysis. From that, you’ll see where your company has advantages, strengths and maybe some weaknesses. And you will learn a lot more about your competition. We’ll cover that in the next article.

Now you can see why I suggest using a professional because these are the bare essentials. These tips will guide you if you decide to do this work yourself. Remember to do the internal analysis first and then the external. If any of this bogs you down, then you will know for sure that you need to get outside help. It’s always worth starting with the low cost approach so see how it goes! And break it down into steps so it is manageable.

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Becky Amble has spent over 25 years leading organizations to grow and increase profits through cutting-edge marketing strategies, market information and future trends. She has worked as a general manager and Vice President in corporate America and been a consultant and factional marketing resource for Fortune 50 companies to micro businesses.?She has successfully navigated in over 30 different industries in the B2B space from med tech to professional service firms.?She is a bestselling author of over 10 books and numerous articles.?She continues to help her businesses grow by identifying market needs, demographic trends and results-oriented business strategies.

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