If there is one thing that is scarce resource today, that is attention!
Because our customers are flooded with sales, marketing, and various other forms of pitches from companies all hoping to win their business.
Many are overwhelmed with this level of information or in some cases want to tune out. To overcome this one of the common approach being done is focus on quantity.
That is try to reach out to as many potential customers as possible, but this is the kind of approach where we are spinning wheels but stuck at the same place. The activities show we are spending a lot of time but stuck there only!
And the sad part what if the wheels are of square and not round also!!
The problem? It all starts with we’re not sure who we’re trying to reach.
The focus instead of quantity is best served if it is on quality. Just like many of our potential customers view their time as their greatest, most valuable asset, and so should we?
We can protect that asset by having a clear understanding of who our target customer is.
How to define your target customers?
There are many elements to define who is our ideal prospect is and to define the prospect persona, but in this, I will give 3 simple ways to develop the first level
We can do that in three easy steps:
- If already have existing clients, look for similarities from your own customers A simple Pareto rule of 80:20 works great. That means 80% of business comes from 20% of top clients. What are these top 20% of clients look like?
- Look for common traits and demographics in that top 20%. The prospect profiling will start with questions like:
· What do these customers have in common?
· What industry they are in?
· Who is size of the business in terms of employees, revenues?
· Who is the prospect we want to speak (Title, Role)?
· What is the location?
. What is the department concerned?
Having the answers to questions like these helps identify other potential customers in the market.
3. Once we know what traits we’re looking for in that top 20%, we should commit 80% of our time to look for or attracting, customers from this group.
If you like little broaden than what can be done is to focus on 1/3rd or if you have multiple segments giving each business, then create different segements.
For example in our case, when we profiled our customer base we found 2 segments of customer profile giving us almost equal business. The 1st is engineering companies and 2nd is service businesses from IT, Digital etc
We divided 2 segments and created 2 different customer profile. This is also called knowing your Zebra. What this means if you know ideal prospect base that you can serve, 50% of problem is solved.
Knowing your ideal prospect is like finding a Zebra if an African safari. Once you find a Zebra, there is no confusion b/w Zebra and other animals. Because of the distinct pattern, Zebra has black and white patches. This brings to identifying what is not Zebra also..
Who isn’t your ideal prospect
Of equal importance is to know, and clearly articulate, who isn’t your prospect. This helps because, if you don’t know doesn’t fit your ideal customer persona, you will spending lot of time chasing wrong people.
To bring clarity to the prospecting efforts, to make everything works and achieve higher ROI, important to know who is not and who is ideal prospect.
Here’s why it’s important to know what is your ideal prospect is:
1. Developing your intro message
One of the critical things to get prospects to speak starts with your introductory message.
It is your 30-second advertising. If you aren’t specific about who we serve best, it’s hard to get those introductions. To make that introduction resonate with the audience, it starts with knowing who you serve and what problems you solve of them.
2. To create your authority and build trust
To partner with referrals or even build trust and develop relationships, what is required is to demonstrate our expertise in client business. This works only on segments where you have demonstrated already. So it is important that we must articulate the type of business or individual we’re looking for that, in turn, builds credibility.
3. We reduce our opportunity cost
Our opportunity cost is what we’re not working on that might have been more viable for our organization. If we’re calling on Company ABC, we’re not working on Company XYZ. Are we losing out on better business, because we’re not calling on the right prospects?
If we know what we don’t want and the reasons why, it might reduce the quantity of opportunities in our pipeline, but the quality will increase dramatically.
Nurturing your ideal prospects
Once we’ve determined which customers are and aren’t our ideal prospects, we need to understand the best ways to get in front of them and build relationships.
The best way is to ask existing clients to referral similar clients. If you don’t have a great referral network, what is second best. It is from people who know you, like and trust you.
They’re easier to close. They are more loyal. And they have a higher average lifetime value. To build that trust and like you, start by doing research on ideal prospects. Where do they hang out, what are they read, look for?
Should we call or email them?
What is their preferred social media platform – LinkedIn, Facebook?
Knowing how and where to reach our target persona will positively impact our ability to hunt, qualify and discover potential new business. And when it comes to most B2B, LinkedIn & E-mail where we find the best.
It takes work to find these prospects and then contact them, but it’s well worth the effort.
Our chances of success are now much higher because we know we’re reaching the right audience, who can become our best clients.
