The B2B Customer Investigator: Ryan Paul Gibson on Conducting Customer Interviews That Don't Suck

Ryan Paul Gibson, founder of Content Lift, shares his expertise on conducting effective B2B customer interviews. With experience from over 1,900 interviews, Ryan reveals insights on understanding buyer processes, getting busy executives to participate in research, and uncovering valuable customer insights.
In this episode, Ryan discusses the importance of focusing on buyer processes rather than demographics, strategies for jogging interviewees' memories, and how to craft ideal persona profiles that go beyond job titles. He also shares tips on overcoming biases in interviews, the ideal number of interviews per project, and how to keep yourself curious as an interviewer.
Whether you're a marketer, product manager, or founder looking to better understand your customers, this episode is packed with actionable advice to improve your customer research skills and drive business growth.
⚒️ MY TOOL STACK:
Notion - bit.ly/3RkYQi7 to manage my entire life, including client projects, knowledge storage and retrieval, habits, goals and more.
Readwise - bit.ly/4adia9Q to store, synchronize and resurface all my book and article highlights.
BetterProposals - bit.ly/3WrbGfw (get your first month free) to create and send all my custom proposals, sign agreements and get paid - in one go with a 90% conversion rate.
Hotjar - bit.ly/3D2DbVO to collect user interaction data, analyze heatmaps, user recordings and run surveys.
Fathom - bit.ly/3D4vKxs to record and transcribe my meetings
Rize - bit.ly/3WWejaQ to track my workday, focus time and keep me productive
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GrowthMentor - bit.ly/48mBwYc where I regularly host coaching sessions and mentor founders, marketing, growth and product people.
MY WORK:
🧑🏼‍💻 SaaS or ecommerce? Let's get your website to sell more - conversionalch...
02:16 Ryan's background and experience with customer interviews
05:00 Understanding buyer processes vs demographics
09:42 The importance of relevance and credibility in B2B messaging
15:06 Ryan's approach to "customer investigations"
20:25 Strategies for jogging interviewees' memories
26:41 Selecting the right customers to interview
29:51 Crafting effective interview questions
34:00 Countering biases and becoming a better interviewer
37:50 Researching before interviews without introducing bias
43:46 Getting busy executives to participate in interviews
48:06 Ideal number of interviews for qualitative research
52:10 Staying curious and energized during customer research
Get the full show notes here christophersil...

[@sarachesches2864]

Hi, Chris! Love your content and the value you provide. On which platform could I contact you directly with a question?

[@silvestrichris]

Thank you! DM me on Instagram, @hellyeschris