We asked about your prospect, you described your customer.

Perfectly understandable error. Happens all the time. Brand stakeholders, from assistant brand managers up to the CEO, know customers. Survey them. Talk to them. Play golf with them. From there, it’s often an easy (lazy?) assumption that prospects are the same sort of folks, just unaware. Unenlightened. As a result, communications get focused on the identical demographics, psychographics and geography. It’s another example of MBWT, Marketing By Wishful Thinking.

But prospects must be different from customers. (Duh!) Knowing what keeps them from choosing you is essential. Why? You can grow your business incrementally (say, 6%) by satisfying customers, but the only way to grow your business exponentially (say, 200%) is by capturing new customers. We can show you how to identify new market segments, focus on the needs of prospects in your messaging, while continuing to use product satisfaction to retain customers.

Is it time to rethink assumptions, perhaps beginning with some actionable research?