Episode 2: Wear Your Customer Hat
Show Notes:
Are you stuck creating offers and messages that never quite land? In this episode, we challenge the conventional wisdom of obsessing over your customers. Instead, I invite you to put on your “customer hat” and see your business through their eyes.
I share real-world stories, including how a simple shift in perspective helped a client’s snack business break out of its niche and reach new audiences. I also break down why traditional customer avatars and ideal client worksheets aren’t enough, and how true empathy and embodiment can transform your messaging, offers, and growth.
In this episode you’ll learn:
You’ll learn:
The critical difference between thinking about your customers and thinking like them
Why outdated personas and assumptions can sabotage your marketing
Practical ways to gather real customer insights—beyond surveys and spreadsheets
How to run a “customer hat audit” of your website and sales pages
The power of collaboration and feedback in refining your message
Whether you’re a seasoned founder or just getting started, this episode offers actionable steps to reconnect with your audience and create offers that truly resonate. Plus, discover how to bring others into your process for more creative, effective results.
Links & Resources:
✨ Book a strategy consultation
✨ Resources: Create Your Ideal Customer Persona + free Website Wellness Checklist
✨ Connect on Instagram
Subscribe to The Table so you never miss an episode. And if you enjoyed this conversation, I’d love for you to leave a review—it helps more founders find clarity without the hustle.
Thanks for pulling up a chair with me today. See you next time—I’ll make sure to save you a seat.
Transcript:
I'm going to say something that might sound a little scandalous, especially coming from a marketer: you need to stop thinking so much about your customers.
Yep, you heard me right.
Because instead of just thinking about your customers, you need to start thinking like them—or as I like to say, put on your customer hat. If you don’t learn the difference, you’ll keep creating offers, messages, and marketing that never quite hit the mark.
If you’re new here, hi, I’m Dani Henneberger. I’m the founder of Mise en Plan and your host of The Table. Pull up a chair—this is where I help businesses big and small reposition their offers, rethink their strategy, and find clarity when the usual menu of marketing tactics just isn’t cutting it anymore. If that sounds like you, you are in the right place.
On today’s episode, let’s talk about what it really means to put on that customer hat: why it’s more powerful than any old ideal client worksheet, avatar, or any of those things—plus, how to start doing it in a way that feels natural.
If you have customers (or want customers!), this episode is for you.
Are You Actually Thinking Like Your Customer?
After years of working with businesses of all sizes, it’s clear: everyone thinks they know who their customer is… but a lot of messaging and offers say otherwise. Most businesses fall back into what they want their customers to think, or what they hope their customers want—not the reality of what’s actually true for their ideal clients.
So, if your personas or ICPs are several years old (or, honestly, even a few months outdated), things have probably changed. You have changed, your business has changed, and your ideal customers have definitely changed. If not just because of time, then because of shifts in the market and in people’s lives.
If you’re still marketing to “everyone,” you’re really marketing to nobody. The message isn’t targeted, and it won’t resonate.
Yes, have your ideal customer profiles and brand guidelines—but they don’t replace real understanding. And if you’ve built those personas by outsourcing the thinking to an AI without stepping out and really listening to your customers, you haven’t actually absorbed what your ideal people are all about.
A Story About the Customer Hat
One of my first Mise en Plan clients was an incredible woman who started a business making homemade, allergen-friendly lactation bars. She wanted to grow. Fun side note—not sponsored—but holy wow, these are tasty. (And this might be TMI, but I’m NOT lactating, and they still make a fabulous snack, morning or afternoon).
Here’s what we did: we looked at who she thought her customers were—lactating mothers—and what she believed they wanted. Then we looked at who her customers actually were… and it turned out her best customers weren’t mothers at all (at least, not lactating ones).
So, we had to put our customer hats on and ask:
Why were the people who would love this product not buying it? We realized that talking about “lactation” in the messaging was weirding out the average snack buyer and ruling out a whole set of potential customers.
By pausing and thinking about what this new audience saw, wanted in a snack, and what they thought about products like this (what pains/goals they had), only then could we create messaging that actually resonated.
She ended up selling at farmers’ markets and getting placed wholesale into cafes. Growth came from stepping back, seeing through the customers’ eyes, and letting the message land with them.
What Does It REALLY Mean to Wear the Customer Hat?
You might be thinking, “Dani, I already wear a million hats—I don’t have time for another.” But of all your hats, this one is the most important. It’s the one that lets you step out of CEO/business-thinking mode and actually inhabit your customers’ daily lives.
Putting on your customer hat isn’t just thinking.
It’s not just observing.
It’s not just making assumptions (because you know what they say about assuming).
It’s embodying:
The language your people use
How they describe their problems
How they feel
How they interact with your brand
What actually drives them to say yes and make a decision
You have to sit in their shoes before you try to sell them new ones.
Practicing Customer Hat Thinking
Here are ways to practice “customer hat” in your business:
Talk to Past and Current Clients: One-on-one, open questions, conversations—not just surveys. Direct conversations are gold.
Networking Events: Listen to real, unscripted language in organic environments if you have a broad niche.
Review Feedback & Testimonials: Read your own and your competitors’. Capture the words and emotions they use.
Reddit & Social Listening: See how your audience talks about their challenges and what they want (unfiltered).
Do a Customer Hat Audit: Review your website or sales page. Are you using words your customers would use? Is the user experience clear for them? Does your message make them want to say “Tell me more”?
If you want help with this, I have a free Website Wellness Checklist—I’ll put it in the show notes.
Real Talk: We All Slide Back Into “About the Customer”
Even I catch myself and my clients slipping into thinking about the customer vs. like the customer—especially during brainstorms or strategic planning. There’s always a moment to pause and recenter: are we wearing our customer hats?
Collaboration helps. Bring in a friend, peer, or advisor to “role-play” as your specific customer type. Push each other to stay in the mindset of the actual buyer—not just the idealized one. More brains, better results.
Key Takeaways
Stop thinking about them. Start thinking like them.
Empathy and perspective are everything—not just data.
Get real-world, “soft” data from conversations and listening.
Bring others into customer hat mode for accountability and more creative, relevant offers.
And honestly, the “customer hat” should probably be a real hat. Anyone want one? Let me know…I may need to make that happen!
As you move through your week, go have at least one genuine conversation with a real customer—no agenda, just listening and thinking like them. If you want help translating those insights into offers and messaging that land, that’s what I do in VIP Days or my Prefer Success partnerships (links in the show notes).
Don’t forget to subscribe, so you don’t miss the next episode. Thanks for pulling up a chair at The Table—I’ll save you a seat for next time.
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