Meet Your Ideal Customer
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Accelerate sales success by finding the perfect match for your business! The concept of an Ideal Customer Profile can be revolutionary for executives who have assumed that all business is good business. The exercise of pinpointing the best clients can dramatically improve sales results and amplify business growth.
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Meet Your Ideal Customer
- 1. Meet Your Ideal Customer Joellyn Sargent, President
- 2. How much of your sales and marketing efforts are wasted on the wrong customers?
- 3. It starts like this…. “We need more business” “You must hit your numbers” “Give them a discount” “Get more leads” “We’ll wait for a sale” Business Abyss
- 4. You get customers like this… Price Sensi@ve Perpetually Picky High Maintenance
- 5. Spend less @me on mee@ngs and proposals and close a higher percentage of your opportuni@es.
- 6. Your Ideal Customer Is the Person… § Who is most likely to buy because your message resonates so well. § Whose head starts nodding in approval when your sales team tells their story § Who understands the value your offering represents. § Who is ready to sign as soon as you prove you can do the job.
- 7. Do Your Best Work for People Who Appreciate It
- 8. An example: Mary § Wasn’t sa@sfied with her business growth. § Spent @me to review past wins / losses. § Looked for paKerns in deals and customers that were most successful. Mary sells IP Phone Systems
- 9. Mary discovered… § Educated buyers closed faster. § Poorly informed prospects ate a lot of @me. § The best buyers understood the boKom line value. § Decisive prospects were were in growth mode. § Budget is less important than an empowered client.
- 10. Think about your BEST business § Which deals closed the fastest? § What common characteris@cs do you see in buyers? § Is there a recurring theme among your best customers? § Can you pinpoint a consistent catalyst for a sale?
- 11. Look for Patterns § Are there personality aKributes of buyers that connect well with your message? § What types of buyers tend to be universally problema@c? § What paKerns do you see in prospects that fall out at the end of the funnel?
- 12. Key Attributes Demographics Psychographics Industries Markets
- 13. Let’s create your Ideal Customer Profile
- 14. Put your profile to work Be ready to change the way you do business.
- 15. Aim your efforts carefully
- 16. Slim down your sales funnel Less In, More Out
- 17. Next Steps How will you apply what you’ve learned today?
- 18. § Higher Customer Sa@sfac@on § BeKer Quality Referrals § Improved Reputa@on § BeKer Brand Percep@ons § More Sales & Marke@ng Efficiency 18
- 19. Let’s Connect email: jsargent@claravon.com twiKer: @JoellynSargent linkedIn: linkedin.com/in/jsargent web: Claravon.com blog: JoeySargent.com Available on: Amazon.com, BN.com, 800CEOread.com
Editor's Notes
- How much of your sales and marketing efforts are wasted on the wrong customers, the ones who never buy in spite of your best efforts?
- When businesses are stuck on a revenue plateau, they typically look to their sales and marketing teams to drum up more business. Under pressure to perform, managers and their employees scramble to “hit the numbers” without really thinking about why what they’re doing isn’t yielding the results they need.Sales representatives ask for more discounts to close the deal, marketing tries incentives and promotions to bring in new business. In the end, they will most likely win some incremental business, but it comes with reduced margins that hurt the long-term viability of the business. This path is a downward slide into a spiral of cuts that trains customers to wait until the special offer comes, focusing buying decisions on price, not value.
- Who hasn’t met this person….Wants a lower priceNever happyHigh maintenance
- Wouldn’t it be great if you could break out of that cycle and be more effective in your sales and marketing?How would you business improve if you spent less time on meeting and proposals and closed a more of your new business opportunities?That would remove a lot of stress and friction for your company, increasing cash flow and giving you more time to focus on delivering an exceptional customer experience, right?Well, adopting the ideal customer profile makes that possible.
- So you might be wondering, what makes a customer or prospect “IDEAL”?An ideal customer is the person…Who is most likely to buy when you get in front of them because your message resonates so well.Whose head starts nodding in approval when your sales team tells their story, because it aligns so elegantly with their own issues, concerns and objectives. Who understands the value your offering represents.Who is ready to sign as soon as you prove you can do the job.
- Like many of you, Mary was frustrated that she wasn’t growing her business the way she wanted. It was okay, but certainly not great.So she spent some time reviewing her past business opportunities, looking and which deals worked out and which did not, and started to see some patterns. spend what was needed to get significant return on their investment in communications technology.
- Here’s what she found:The deals that closed most quickly were ones where she met with an educated buyer, who had already done some research on IP vs. traditional phone systems.She spent a lot of time on prospects that weren’t well informed, educating them about benefits only to be told they weren’t ready to make a change, or that they had gone with a competitor.Her best buyers were not IT managers or CIOs, but small business owners who understood the bottom line value of the enhanced feature set her phone system offered and how it could impact productivity.Clients who were most decisive were those that were in growth mode and needed to leverage productivity improvements for improved profitability.A customer’s predefined budget was less important than finding an empowered client who understood her value proposition. These prospects had the authority to spend what was needed to get significant return on their investment in communications technology.
- Which deals closed the fastest?Which ones took the longest?What ones never did close?What common characteristics do you see in buyer or companies that were easy to close?What about those that took longer or never made it over the finish line?Is there a recurring theme among your best customers (those that are long term or repeat buyers)?Can you pinpoint a consistent catalyst for a sale, such as a change in your customer’s life or business that drives a purchase?
- Are there personality attributes of buyers that tend to connect well with your sales message (people who are driven, analytical, decisive, etc.)?What types of customers or buyers tend to be universally problematic, either during the sales process or after they close?What patterns can you see in prospects that stay in the funnel for a long time, but fall out at the bitter end?
- What are some key attributes of your best customers?Are they decisive? Inquisitive? Detail oriented? Driven?Do they tend to come from specific industries? Are they clustered in markets by geography or other common characteristics?These data point will serve as the foundation for your ideal customer profile.
- Walk away from prospects that don’t fit the model
- Your sales funnel will change, from wide at the top and narrow at the bottom, to wider throughout because you’re putting in fewer, but more qualified customers, and more of these leads come out at the end as customers.
- What are your take-aways from this session?Do you have a good start on building your profile?
- Nailing down the ideal customer profile can have a downstream impact on the business, both in terms of referrals and brand value. Working with the right customers improves satisfaction. These happy customers spread the word, attracting more customers like them. Having a loyal following of customers who can give good testimonials and refer new business to you is a strong benefit. Over time, this goodwill translates into a positive perception of your brand and tangible advantages on the bottom line.
- In closing, I’d like to offer you a complimentary white paper on adding social to your marketing mix. If you’d like a copy, just download from the link shown here.