This is a guest post by Andrea Bradford. Andrea is a business coach and consultant from Miami, Florida and a writing contributor to Degreejungle.com a college student resource.

It all started with a cryptic email.

When I started offering my services as a business coach, I was very confused. My website seemed to have a lot of traffic, but no one was hiring me! Here I was, writing blog posts that I thought were helpful, offering free trial coaching sessions, and posting on social media sites like crazy. Yet still had no customers.

My Rude Introduction to Customer Surveys

Then, I got an email from a regular reader. Let’s call him George. His email contained a single sentence which changed the direction of my business forever:

“Andrea, I love your tips on your blog, but I don’t understand why I’d need a coach … Sorry.”

This got me thinking. Was George the only reader who felt this way? I went on Facebook and posed this question to my readers and a business group:

“Do you think an outside coach or consultant could help you with your business?”

And the responses blew me away. They ranged from “it depends” to “I don’t see the benefit” to a downright “No.”

If I had asked this question from the start, I would have saved myself a lot of trouble, effort, and money. Clearly, my target audience and I did not see eye to eye. Since then, I’ve made a habit of conducting customer surveys … and my business profited as a result.

Creating Survey Questions

You, too, can conduct surveys of your target clients or customers as a way to learn how to create new products or services tailored to them. Kelly herself did it last year. Here are some questions you can ask:

• What’s the number one thing you are struggling with right now when it comes to {your industry/niche/topic}?

• If I could magically help you accomplish one thing related to {your industry/niche/topic} within the next 2 weeks, what would that be?

• What methods have you used in the past to help you with {your industry/niche/topic}? How did they work for you?

You may wonder why these survey questions require qualitative essay answers rather than scientific, numerical answers. While these types of surveys may be more difficult to analyze, they can help you uncover your customers’ deep, unaddressed issues. Also, when your customers use their own words, you can use their own words in your copywriting.

Using the Survey Answers

Don’t take the survey answers at face value. Look for “the answer behind the answer.” Here are some examples pulled from my own audience’s most common answers to the question “What’s the #1 thing holding you back when starting your business?”

Real answer: I don’t know any investors to help me start my business.

Answer behind the answer: I need a way to either get a lot of seed money, or to launch my business with minimal or no capital.

Real answer: I don’t have a good business idea yet.

Answer behind the answer: I need a way to generate a profitable business idea more effectively.

What do these two common answers tell me? A lot.

For example: Most people are held back by the belief that they need a lot of capital to start a business. I need to either show them how to get capital, or how to start a business with no capital at all.

They are also held back thinking that great business ideas make great businesses. In my experience, it’s the systems in place that make a business great. I have to show them that these systems are more profitable and easier than “The Big Idea”.

By analyzing these two most common answers, it’s easier for me to think of new topics that will be profitable as ebooks, courses, or webinars – just because I’ve found my customers’ #1 pain points.

Best of all, I can use their own words in my copywriting. One of my first successful headlines read: “No capital? Don’t worry, you CAN launch your own business within 2 months just by following this system.”

This additional headline in my coaching page raised my conversion rate of almost ZERO to hover around 25%.

Not a bad result from a few simple questions and answers.

Have you ever tried using qualitative customer surveys? If so, how did they help you?

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