Frustration Survey – It Can Give Your Business a Boost

We believe surveys are critical in positioning your business to meet the needs in your community.  However, we don't believe traditional surveys are effective for most businesses.  We do believe that most questions provided are leading ones and people don't think clearly of their answers.  In other words, you already know the answers yourself.

Early in our careers, we realized that in communication, listening is often more important than speaking.  A survey is a listening tool. However, before you create a survey you need to understand the "frustrations" within a community.

Everyone dreams of being different. Then why is it that most new businesses deliver the same, but state they are different?  During the HBBH seminars we ask attendees to identify "frustrations" within their industry. An entrepreneur listens and does not defend what they learn. What is important is the fact we are blessed in living in a nation where complaining is right behind procrastination as a favourite pastime.  By listening to what people are complaining about, provides you critical data in order to position yourself uniquely in your community.

The most powerful survey you can undertake is to find out what frustrates potential clients within the area your business serves.  Your survey has one question, what frustrates you about….?  Get up to ten frustrations if possible and continue until a general consensus is put together. 

Now you know what people are not getting and what frustrates them.  What do you do with the information?  You design your business to provide the opposite of course!  The skill of an entrepreneur is to "act" on what the survey has conveyed.  For example, doing this within the health care profession has allowed our clients to position themselves uniquely by developing strategies and systems to address the frustrations people have with the industry.  In the movie 'Field of Dreams' it states, "build it and they will come." By tapping into frustrations identified on the survey, and delivering the opposite, you provide a foundation for word of mouth marketing.  If they get frustrated elsewhere, and not with you, they will let others know. 

Business uniqueness comes from delivering uniqueness. Getting clear on how to make your business unique is done through a "frustration" survey and doing what you can to deliver the opposite or something different. 

Dick and Andy