Risk & Business Magazine CEO/CFO Business Today Magazine Fall 2017 | Page 20

BUYER PERSONA
What Does Your Buyer Really Want?
Five Insights Reveal the True Story
T
he most compelling way to
understand people we don’t
know is through stories:
stories about the challenges
they face, the options they
consider and how they decide upon a
particular course of action.
You probably know that historical
figures such as Amelia Earhart and
Ernest Shackleton were intrepid risk
takers. But this label falls short of
explaining their “adventurer” persona.
Indeed, as every biographer knows, we
remember these people because we have
heard stories about the circumstances
they encountered and the choices they
made. Spend more time with their
stories and we begin to empathize with
their unique circumstances and why
they made such fascinating decisions.
We can even see where exposure to
20
other options would have led to a very
different conclusion.
TELL AN ACTIONABLE STORY ABOUT
YOUR BUYER PERSONA
The biographer’s credo is instructive
for companies that want insight
into strategies that will affect their
persona’s buying decision. Sadly, many
buyer personas fall short. Most are
built around buyer profiles, featuring
descriptions about their buyer’s
personality, role, priorities or concerns.
If these profiles tell any story at all, they
tend to feature “a-day-in-the-life” of the
buyer, with a timeline that is unlikely
to include the buying decision we want
to influence. We get lots of context but
little connection; these profiles lack the
essential links between circumstances
and a buyer’s motivation to invest in a
service or product like ours.
The confusion about buyer personas
evaporates when companies approach
personas with a biographer’s mindset,
seeking to reveal a story about their
buyers’ perceptions, attitudes and
behavior as buyers confront the need
to achieve a particular goal, research
alternatives, assess the merits of various
options and make a buying decision.
Your buyer persona’s story will be
actionable when it focuses on just five
buying insights:
1. PRIORITY INITIATIVE INSIGHT
This identifies the conditions that
trigger your buyer’s decision to search
for a product, service or solution like
yours. Not to be confused with pain
points, your persona’s story will tell
you what is different about the buyer’s