Kassie was recently telling me about the website that seems to no longer exist called “Pick the Perp”. You pick who you think was charged with a particular crime. Here’s an example:
Now in some cases, it seems obvious… until a little old lady is charged with being a serial killer.
Point is, we have a stereotype in our heads of who is our customer but sometimes it pays to do actual research on who our customer is.
We decided to bring back this game, if only very briefly about a much less controversial topic: food. So we went on Instagram, grabbed a photo and you guess who took it.
What: Root Beer Float
Who drank the root beer float?
What: Home cooked meat, potatoes, and salad
What: Chocolate cake
So here are the answers:
Root Beer Float: A
Meat and Potatoes: C
Chocolate Cake: A
Now besides being a silly exercise, can this teach us anything?
1) Context helps. So the meat and potatoes on a glass coffee table? That may have pointed us to the fashion blogger looking person. 🙂 Understanding the context people are in (friendships, where they live, what kind of coffee table they have) helps us understand when our customers choose us. Important to understand context because it can help us pick out future customers… or maybe even working with another company on a cross promotional opportunity if we have the same customers.
2) Look at clues… but only if they are helpful. In one of the examples above, I kept the hashtags. (To be fair, not sure how easy it is to read them.) In two of them, I kept in the handles in. You had the most information in example one (root beer float) and the least in chocolate cake. Was the one with more information easier to guess? If you thrive on information and it helps you make better choices, use it. If it paralyzes you, don’t.
3) Don’t assume. I’m betting you got one of these wrong (I would have if I hadn’t created it). We can make assumptions: that overweight woman isn’t interested in clean eating, that older man wouldn’t attend our computer class, etc. But sometimes our assumptions can keep us from truly reaching our potential with our businesses… and helping people we could be helping.
Anyway, we thought this would be a fun exercise. Can you pick out your customers from a lineup? What helps you do so? What are you assuming wrong that you want to correct?