Questions you need to ask when conducting your client survey

I have been insisting on the importance of running market research and making sure that you really know your market very well, but most importantly that you know your potential customers and their challenges very well. So I will share with you my simple, easy questions that you need to answer when you run a survey with potential clients.

As a business and marketing expert, I will share with you all my tips, tricks and insights on how to build a successful portable business and thrive in your global nomadic life. Running a survey is not that easy, especially to know what questions to ask. So I wanted to share with you here my tips on how you can run a survey to get to know your potential customers better and to actually know your current customers better and how you can know where you can make a difference. Because at the end of the day what you want to know is where can you make a difference compared to your other competitors and the triggers that can help you become more convincing and have clients that really, really want to work with you.

There are many ways to run a survey as you know, but one of my favorite ways is to either meet with them one on one and also run an online survey. Actually, I usually recommend doing both. I actually recommend having 5-10 people that you meet, one to one to ask them questions and then have an online questionnaire that you can send to your potential clients.

It is more about knowing what questions to ask

There are so many tools out there to do that. I will put that in the webpage of this episode. The simplest tool is Google Forms and it’s free, it’s easy to use. So if you’re not into tech aspects, that is probably the easiest tool to use. There is also Typeform and Monkey Survey for example. Those are tools to run a survey. But I don’t think it is the most complicated part of running a survey and asking them questions. It is more about knowing what questions to ask and how those questions can help you move forward in your business and get the important information that will help you get more clients. Are you ready? Here is my first question or the first type of question you want to ask to your potential clients.

Question 1 – what are the biggest challenges and why?

The first type of question you want to ask is all about the challenges. You want to learn all the challenges your customers are having regarding the product or service you are providing to your customers. You want to know their biggest challenge and why it is a challenge. That is basically the distinction I make between a problem and a pain point. A problem is, for example, I have the flu, that is the problem, but the pain point is that I have a headache, my throat is hurting, I’m coughing and I can’t go to work. You want to know as much as you can about those pain points and the problems that your customers are having. You want to know what problems they have? It could be many. And, the consequences of these problems.

Questions like, what is your biggest challenge regarding this? When you choose the “this” it has to be related to your business, to what you offer. For example, in tandem nomads, if I had to ask the question, which I actually often asked to many of you, what is your biggest challenge when building your portable business? That is the first question you want to ask, and once they answer, the second type of question you want to ask is about the type of challenge and why it is a problem? The first type of questions you want to ask are all about discovering the challenges and the pain points of your customer.

Question 2 – what resources are being used?

The second type of question is about other resources, the services or the products they use to be able to deal with those challenges. It could be books, it could be courses, it could be specialists, it could be products. You want to know all the resources that your audience is using to be able to address those challenges. That is the second type of question.

Question 3 – what resources are working?

The third type of question you want to ask in a questionnaire or a survey is, what has worked? What is the resource that they listed that so far has been helpful? Because you want to know the things that are working on your audience, even if it is not you who has been providing it, you want to know what is working. You want to make sure that what is working is continuing to work for your customers. For instance, it will also help you to know where not to go because someone else is doing that, which leads me to the fourth type of question you want to ask in your survey.

Question 4 – what resources are not working?

Among the resources that they listed, what has not worked? And that, my friends, is where you want to focus your business. Your USP, as we often say in marketing, your Unique Selling Point, should be where others are not providing value. This is why this fourth question is really critical when you run a survey and try to understand the needs of your audience.

If you manage to get all these answers, you will have a gold mine of information to be able to make your business really, really efficient. It will also really answer the questions and the needs of your audience. You want to make it as precise as possible and get those answers as precise as possible.

One more thing!

When you run these surveys or when you have these interviews with people, make sure to write down all the key words and expressions that they are using to express their challenges, their resources, and their desired results. Because that is actually what is going to be super useful for you when you do your marketing copy, your sales copy, which is actually the text you use to be able to present your offer and services.

You want to use the language of your customers and not the language of your business. That is also very critical and that is also a huge advantage of running a survey. You are not only going to be able to know the needs of your customers, what they are expecting, what they are looking for, but you will also be able to express it in the way they do so that they can identify with it. Make sure that you do that survey, that you do those interviews and make sure to keep in one place all those key expressions and key words that are going to be gold for you later on to be able to start approaching them with your products and services.

It is all about taking action

I hope this was helpful to you and I would love to hear in the comments section the most important insights that you got from this post, what will you be implementing in the near future in your business. Remember, it is all about taking action and I want to know what action you will be taking.

To stay up-to-date with news and resources to help you on your journey starting a portable business Sign up for the Tandem Nomads newsletter.

Sign up to download your free e-book to turn your business idea into revenue and impact!