👋 Hi! Welcome to the Proof Studio newsletter.
Nothing grows revenue like actually knowing your customer.
Every week, I send you tactical advice on figuring out what your customers actually want, so you can build it and sell more of it.
Longer edition today, but I wanted to share a customer interview story that reminded me of something super, super important:
Your best customer has a life outside of you.
You have to understand their world, and fit yourself into it.
The story I want to share is about Barbara, a customer of my CPG bodycare client, who needed help figuring out their power users really were. Ever since Meta ads moved to an algorithmic model, it’s been really hard to know who the ICP is. Our call reminded me how little of someone's life is actually about your product, even when they absolutely love you.
Barbara and her Whole30 bowls
Turns out that Barbara is a recently converted power user. For a couple of years, she had been a very casual user until she created a 1-hour nightly routine with a magnesium soak, a pumice stone, and my client’s footcare creams and lotions. She told me that it was “certainly a time investment” but this routine finally got her great results.
We talked for a while about how she’d had the same healthcare job for the past 40 years, what she just made for Easter dinner with the kids, and that she visited her mom once a week. She also told me about her favorite Instagram influencers. (“I love Instagram! I’m such a sucker for those ads. I just bought a UV disinfecting machine for my phone off of one.”)
30 minutes into our call, Barbara tells me that she’s working on getting healthier so that she can hang out with her grandkids for as long as possible. She retired last year, so now she has time to focus on her health.
I ask her what that means and if she’s doing anything new.
She tells me that she’s always been really diligent about using her stationary bike, that she has largely cut out alcohol, and that she and her husband are doing the Whole30 reset again.
The stationary bike? So interesting - when did she pick up that routine?
Barbara tells me that her doctor recommended it a few years ago while she was regaining strength after hip surgery. She hadn’t exercised much before that but now she “doesn’t miss a single day.”
And the Whole30? Why Whole30 and not something else?
She perks up while telling me that she’s tried a bunch of different diets, but whenever she’s in need of a health reset, Whole30 is the easiest for her because of how much structure it provides. It’s “fantastic to have a shopping list” and she sits down every Sunday morning to plan meals for the week. She mentions again that cooking is actually easy because of how much structure the Whole30 program provides. Tuesdays are her bowl days. She loves making a bowl (“bowls are just the best”) with salmon, sweet potatoes, and greens and is especially thrilled that her husband loves it too.
rich inputs → best output → topline growth
The most useful things I learned about Barbara has nothing to do with my client in particular. I learned:
She finds a structured routine comforting
She had a gap in her footcare routine but wasn’t an expert
She needs a brand or authority to create a plan so she can just execute
My client might have converted her to power user status way faster with a prescriptive 30-day regimen and product-pairing education.
One interview doesn't rewrite the strategy, but it opens threads:
Are the other power users like her?
Is it worth it to sell individual SKUs, or does this category work better when you sell bundles and regimens?
Once you understand who your customer is outside your brand, you can apply those learnings everywhere: ads, email, influencer fit, distribution, CX scripts, product roadmap.
Work on getting a complete picture of THEIR world. Good luck!
Lorel
Add me on LinkedIn :)
My company, Proof Studio, runs 1:1 customer interviews for scaling consumer brands that need help building confidence in Product and GTM bets. If you know that you need to get closer to your customers, book a call with me here.