Common mistakes of startup founders : What is the 'Staircase of Consumption'? [Starting a business 4]

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1.The first staircase of consumption: the entrepreneur's character

You've found your customer, and you've got your item. Now you need to create a "staircase of consumption" so that your customer responds well to each step.

The first step is the entrepreneur's character. In marketing, it is also called branding, 'image management'.

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First of all, the parts that people can take in with their senses, such as sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch, you have nothing to lose if you can manage them well, but you lose a lot if you can't.

Having a great appearance and a natural voice is one thing, but the impression that you are in good control is critical, such as the tone of voice, attitude, clothes, hairstyle, and scent that suits the situation. It seems absurd, but it lowers more barriers than you might think.

For the most part, you're in a place where you're not off-putting to people. Now you have to use this character to get their attention. You need to create a character-item-customer relationship so that if your ideal customer sees it, they'll recognize that it's talking to them.

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Even before you meet your customer, express who you are, how you relate to your item, and who your ideal customer is. Create content or create an ad, but don't explain your character or relationship in detail. Customers just want to see what the characters do to fit the concept, not why you set them up the way you did.

It's only when they're interested in what we've laid out for them that they want to know the backstory. It's like when you get a job interview and your resume gets passed. This means you want to know the person's background, what they've done, what their coworkers think of them, etc.

In order to take advantage of this opportunity, it's vital to organize the character's story well in advance. Similar to a self-introduction, we need to structure the background, strengths, weaknesses, and overcomes so that everything flows naturally into our ideas and items, so that we can leave a good impression: friendly, capable, admired, recognized, trusted, loved, etc.

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There are no hard and fast rules for creating a character - you can be ugly as a pug puppy(!) and still be cute, or perfect and still be an asshole. As an entrepreneur, your character is about creating an image that will reflect well on your product before you even meet the customer. Even on a typical blind date, you can't help but be bothered by the information you've heard about the person right before you meet them.

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*Character Background Examples

-Winding Evil Character

-A pioneer who has overcome the same challenges as you

-The Perfectly Competent

-A craftsman who only digs one well

-A pioneer who takes the road less traveled

-A boss who sees things through to the end

-A character who doesn't take the initiative, but others keep asking for it.

-A leader that others trust and follow

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2. The Second Staircase to Consumption: Getting Customers to Respond

The entrepreneurial character is basically busy. It's not enough to run around here and there shouting about your product. The problem is, no matter how much you talk about it, people don't listen.

That's why you have to keep getting noticed. You have to get the word out, you have to show ads, you have to show content, you have to show photos, and you have to make a fuss. That's how customers who have seen our tear-jerking show come to you.

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1) We need to figure out if the visitor is our ideal customer.

We need to determine if the customer who came in knows nothing, is only thinking about solving a problem, knows the product, or doesn't care.

When the customer comes to us, we need to envision an outcome that matches what they saw when they came to us. You can see an example of this in the second episode.

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2) Make different offers for different types of customers.

-If the customer doesn't know anything, you must start with the problem.

-If they're only focused on solving a problem, tell them why your item is special.

-If they know the product, you can just recommend the product.

-You can't catch someone who is not interested.

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3) You need to upgrade the reactions that your customers show while following the offers you design.

-Likes, subscriptions, comments, surveys, interviews

-Phone numbers, emails, waiting lists

-Participation in seminars, demos, meetups

-Pre-orders, deposits, donations

-Instant purchases, bulk purchases

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4) Create a relationship between the entrepreneurial character and the customer.

The person who will turn into your ideal customer must go with you. We endured a long journey to get to our dream customers. Don't let your guard down until you have enough ideal customers. In marketing or management, we often say to gather 1,000 fans.

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5) Sell the real thing.

It's time to iron out all the wrinkles in your product and properly present the finished product to your ideal customer. The finished product may look nothing like the offer you've been making up to this point. Up until now, we've been suggesting to the customer, but from here on out, they'll be suggesting to us. This is where the real magic begins.

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3. The third rung of consumption: trust

Once we have a certain amount of our ideal customers, our regular customers will slowly start to move in. They may not be the perfect fit for our product, but they'll still buy it. This is because they've seen the staircase of consumption we've built and the reviews, recommendations, and repurchases of our ideal customers.

It's like asking for a picture before a blind date. Rather than a stranger, the staircase is now delivered by someone who has been evaluated to some degree.

If we've done a decent job of managing the reputation for the first and second staircase, we can now rely on the credibility and reliability we've earned to convince customers. Let's appeal to the average customer who doesn't want to miss out.

"Dear customer, please follow me up the stairs I've prepared for you. It's safe."

Consumers do a lot of self-rationalization to choose the Galaxy Z Flip from a sea of phones.

Ads, stores, models, lineups, after-sales service, detail pages, etc. are all staircases of consumption that companies have intended and crafted.

We need to redesign this staircase of consumption by going from being a consumer to a provider.

Let's meet our customers before we run out of money, time, or energy.

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Next Post｜After starting a business, you need to work on this to get on the growth curve [Starting a business 5]

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Written by SaaSCatch (Link)

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