Why do customer personas matter for a trade business?
A persona makes sense of what you know, or do not know, about your customers. It keeps your team focused on whose problem you are solving and stops you spending time, energy and resources on things that have no real impact.
Every part of your business sits on this foundation. Your marketing, your sales approach, the systems you build, who you hire, how you train your team on site: all of it needs to meet and exceed the expectations of your customers. Without a clear picture of who those customers are, you are guessing.
Why should you drop demographics and focus on something else?
Traditional personas were built on demographics: age, location, education, income. None of that tells you what is in the hearts and minds of the people you are trying to serve, and it is what is in their hearts and minds that drives decisions.
A 25-year-old and an 80-year-old can share the same emotional state, the same fears and the same definition of a successful outcome. If you segment by age, you miss that entirely. Demographic detail can support your persona as background information, but it should never be the primary lens.
What are the three things a persona actually needs to capture?
The three areas to focus on are jobs to be done, pains and gains.
Jobs to be done cover what the customer is trying to accomplish. There are rational and functional jobs, such as renovating a bathroom or installing fans before Christmas, but there are also emotional and social jobs. An emotional job is how the customer wants to feel about themselves once the work is done. A social job is what they want other people to think of them as a result of the decision they made.
Pains are the frustrations, fears and risks that sit in the customer's mind before, during and after engaging with you. They might not know the technical language of your trade and feel embarrassed asking questions. They might be worried about costs blowing out, or about hiring someone unreliable and having no recourse if something goes wrong. Knowing these pains helps you address them directly in your marketing and in the way your team communicates on site.
Gains are the positive outcomes the customer is hoping for. What does a great result look like to them? What would make this a good day? When your services are clearly aligned to these hopes, you are hitting the mark.
How do you give a persona a name that your team will actually use?
Create a name that is catchy and immediately communicates the emotional state of that customer type. The example used in this lesson is "Frustrated Felicity." The moment someone on your team says "I've got a Frustrated Felicity on the phone," everyone knows what they are dealing with: what to talk about, what fears to address and how to move the conversation forward.
The actual caller might be Barry. You still say it is a Frustrated Felicity situation, and the right person or the right approach is applied straight away. The name does not define gender or age; it defines the emotional state and the job to be done.
How does your team use personas beyond the office?
Personas are not just a marketing or business development tool. They belong on the front line. When a tradesperson is heading to a job, they should be able to identify which customer type they are working with and know what that means for how they communicate and what they pay attention to on the day.
If your jobs system, whether that is an iPad, a digital platform or a paper job ticket, has the customer type noted on it, your team has that information in front of them before they knock on the door. The goal is for every team member, at any point, to be able to answer: who is this job for, and what matters most to them today?
How often should you review your customer personas?
Review your personas at a minimum every quarter. Customer needs, fears and definitions of success change over time. What was true about your typical customer before a major disruption may not be true afterwards. Staying connected to your customer data keeps your personas relevant and keeps your business one step ahead of what your customers actually need.
