Your Customer Avatar

A customer avatar is an imaginary representative created by combining all the key traits that your best customers have in common, while leaving out traits they don't share

Example: If your customers are all mothers but some are entrepreneurs, some are professionals, and some stay-at-home moms, you focus on the 'mother' trait and avoid job-specific language that would alienate other segments

You must talk directly to your customers to understand their biggest fears, frustrations, wants and desires - you cannot skip this step and just imagine who you think they are

Eben states that coaches repeatedly tell him 'when I went out and actually started talking to customers, they really surprised me. I learned so many things that I never would have guessed before. So many counterintuitive things.'

Most business owners make the mistake of projecting themselves onto their customers, assuming customers are educated, sophisticated, and as interested in the product as they are

Eben explains this is called 'projection in psychology' and gives his dating advice business example where his customers were similar personality types but 5-10 years behind him in development in dating skills

Communicating one-to-one with your avatar activates different emotions and brain responses compared to speaking to a large group in university lecture style

This applies whether writing blog posts, sales letters, creating podcasts or videos because the customer is probably consuming content alone and one-to-one communication 'activates the emotions' and 'builds credibility, trust, the real experience of friendship'

Give your customer avatar a name that is typical of your customer base to make the mental connection more powerful and personal

Eben emphasizes naming creates a more powerful marketing dynamic when communicating with one person instead of talking at a large group

Most people are 25-30 pounds overweight, have low self-esteem, have 0.75 best friends on average, are bored most of the time, and are more disconnected than ever despite being ultra-connected online

Eben provides specific statistics: 'point seven five best friends. That means for every four people, only three of them even have someone that they could call a best friend' and explains we've 'traded in real friendship and we're substituting kind of superficial friendship like activities online'

Use 'negative capability' - the ability to shut off your own programming and simulate what it's like to be another human being until you start having the emotions they're having

Dr. Ned Hallowell told Eben this is what poet Keats called 'negative capability' - you keep doing the exercise until you feel 'Oh wow, that's what it feels like to be them' and only create marketing from that emotional state

Ask customers about their 'ultimate scenario' - the perfect outcome where their problem is solved and they have exactly what they want

Eben learned this concept from Joe Stumpf in the real estate training world and defines it as 'the ideal situation' where you ask 'If you could paint a picture of perfect, what would it be?'

Empathy develops around age 4, but most people stop using this perspective-taking ability intentionally and let their unconscious process take over

Eben describes the crayon box experiment where 3-year-olds can't predict what others think is in the box, but 5-year-olds can do perspective-taking. He notes 'by adulthood, we have the ability to keep going. We can keep building the levels by imagining another higher level of meta'

Customers can feel when you genuinely care about them versus when marketers use fake templates and don't really want to help solve their problems

Eben warns against 'scammy marketers' who 'take these ideas and then just kind of use them and create kind of fake content' and emphasizes 'we can really tell when someone cares. We can feel it. And so the more you care, the more they'll be able to feel it'