More leads, more customers, more revenue: Why you need to think from your customer’s perspective

By Daniel Schäfer, Business Consultant & Founder at X-Group

In short: Revenue is not generated by advertising alone, but by understanding the situation your leads are currently in — and why they need your solution to avoid ending up there themselves. Those who internalise this perspective win more customers without having to sell more.

Contents of this article

1. The most beautiful sentence in business – and what really lies behind it
2. From fisherman to entrepreneur: Where do you cast your nets?
3. The psychology of every purchasing decision: Incoherence and coherence
4. Why your customers really need you
5. Your knowledge is your value – show it in your marketing
6. Conclusion: Think like your customer

1. The best sentence in business – and what it really means

A good business friend regularly asks me, grinning broadly, what the best sentence in business is. His answer: revenue. And he is right — revenue is what keeps every business alive. However, many founders and entrepreneurs overlook a crucial intermediate step: revenue only comes from customer orders, and customer orders only come from leads — that is, from people who genuinely have a real interest in your service.

So, if you want more revenue, you first need to understand how to generate more and better leads. And this is most reliably achieved when you develop a genuine awareness of your lead’s perspective.

“You only get revenue when you have customer orders. And you only get customers when you have generated leads.”

2. From fisherman to entrepreneur: Where do you cast your nets?

I like to compare the CEO’s task of marketing to that of a captain on a fishing trawler. He stands on the bridge and must decide where to cast the nets: close to the shore, out at sea, in the shadow behind an island, or by a sandbank. Each decision has different consequences for the catch.

You make exactly this decision as an entrepreneur when you place your advertising, your campaigns, and your communications in your market. For the “fish” — your prospects — to bite at all, you need to know where and when they are interested in you. This requires a genuine psychological in-depth analysis of what motivates people to entrust you with their money.

3. The psychology of every purchasing decision: Incoherence and coherence

Neuroscientists such as Dr Gerald Hüther put it succinctly: A person with an unresolved problem is in a state of incoherence. In this state, the brain uses particularly high amounts of energy, because it is searching for a solution under pain or unmet needs. The brain’s goal is to reach the opposite state: coherence — that is, satisfaction, happiness, and joy, the state in which it requires the least energy.

A few everyday examples make this tangible: A woman with a bad haircut looks for a hairdresser for a perm or hair extensions. Broken shoes or neglected feet lead to the cobbler or the beauty salon. In every case, an unpleasant state — a deficiency — is restored to coherence: the need is satisfied, the pain eliminated.

The path from incoherence to coherence always involves a service, a product, or a solution — something that is actively created to move the customer from their burdensome state to a new, satisfied state.

“The path from incoherence to coherence happens through a service, a product, or a solution.”

4. Why your customers really need you

Take your car’s brake pads: in theory, you could buy the tools and change them yourself. But you might lack the lifting platform, the specialist knowledge of which connector to loosen first, or how to remove the wheel. It is precisely this expertise, these tools, and this experience that can provide a real solution.

Your leads have exactly this problem: they lack the skills, tools, time, or resources to move from incoherence to coherence on their own. You may know your customer’s emotional state — both their pain and their desired sense of happiness. However, what is even more important is that you clearly identify and have the courage to address why your customer cannot implement the solution themselves.

5. Your knowledge is your value – showcase it in your marketing

You have invested in your education, worked for years, perhaps taken out loans to purchase machinery and equipment, and hired employees. This is precisely the value your customer draws upon to reach their desired state of happiness.

In summary, your customer’s real problem is not only that they are in an uncomfortable, incoherent state — but that they lack the resources, time, money, or knowledge to get from A to B on their own. This is exactly what you offer. And this should be the focus of your entire marketing approach: your keywords, your ads, your creatives, your landing page, your content, and also your personal communication in sales conversations.

6. Conclusion: Think like your customer

Be aware not only of the state your customers and leads are in and where they want to go. The real issue is that they cannot get there on their own — and you are the service provider who can help them do exactly that. Incorporate this message into all your communications and external presentation.

If you implement this consistently, you will find that customers approach you, leads call you, and you open your door in the morning to 10 or 20 new enquiries.

Ready to win more leads and customers? If you need support in developing this concept and implementing it through modern channels such as social media and search engine marketing, we are happy to speak with you in a free initial consultation: x-group.de/#kalender

This entire marketing concept is always a matter for the management — as an entrepreneur, you must learn and understand it yourself before you can lead and commission service providers who actually deliver results focused on revenue and business growth. That is exactly what we stand for at X-Group.