Once you have asked your customer questions similar to those on the previous page to gain a better understanding of the overt and latent pain points they may be experiencing, your next step is to work with your customer to create a vision of how these pain points could be addressed.

In many cases, it may be helpful to list some of the key pain points mentioned by your customer on a sheet of paper or on a white board in a table format in a column labeled “Pain.”

Then in another column to the right of the Pain column, identify another column called “Vision.”

This table could be similar to the table on the right side of this page. For many customers, a visual aide such as the table to the right can help focus their attention, and make the pains they discussed more tangible to them.