Now that the team is working in, or towards, the creation of an environment of trust it is time to focus our attention on the ideal customer persona(s).
As you evaluate your client list, and/or past customers, it is imperative to identify who was, or is, the ideal customer for your product(s) and service.
Who’s problems do you solve most effectively? Who’s life do you improve and how does this impact your ability to succeed? Let’s dig deep into these customers and your relationship with them. Examine their impact on your business from numerous angles to gain perspective from each touch point they have with you and your team. Whether customer success, accounts receivable, sales, or fulfillment, find out how your team’s responsibilities are called upon by this relationship. Gain intelligence from examining your client behaviors and seek to understand how their buying process flows as your team seeks their customer satisfaction. You will find nuggets of wisdom which will help you create a productive sales process.
Gathering intelligence on your customer will help target company size, where they do business (vertical), ideal company size in annual revenue, and the average number of employees and departments that align best with your company. As you understand these demographics / characteristics, you will begin to understand who is making decisions and from what angle they will be measuring your product or service’s value to their specific needs.
Your team’s perspective of their relationships with these client’s will help you identify the unique behaviors that are common within specific departments. Your team will be the guide to identifying the merits of your product and what specific problems have been eliminated with your solution. Probe to find the underlying merits of your relationship and the challenges/pain that you have eliminated or reduced. Find out how you made business more productive, relationships more effective, and delivered quantifiable value.
Dependent upon your resources, it is common for your marketing team to take what you have identified as your customer and to research far deeper into your customer. Whether through surveys, interviews, and focus groups the further you identify your client’s characteristics the more you can customize your selling process to their traits.
Now that you understand the details of who your customers are and the characteristics that go into their decision-making process, you can begin to build out buyer personas.
This persona is a fictional customer, yet epitomizes the characteristics of your best clients, your ultimate customer. Understand that as you run through this activity that you may identify more than one or two or even fifteen ideal customer personas. You will find that it is best to focus on the customer profiles and personas that are most profitable for your business first. It is possible to focus on all fifteen, or more, yet only if and when you have the bandwidth to support such a strategy and do so with a service level that is best of class. In most cases you will see a pattern where your ideal client persona will direct you towards a more finite group of clients.
Now that you know your customer, it is time to map out the decision-making process they undergo when buying. I like to start at the when the initial sale is “paid for” and confirmed and think backwards through each step and conversation of the buying process to understand the evaluation process that went into buying.
How many people were involved and what was their primary focus:
- How did we address each of their primary needs
- Did we reduce pain or costs (how so?)
- What improvements did they envision (and how did we address this?)
- What questions were critical to answer and how did we deliver relief to their concerns about working together
- How will they be more effective in buying our product/service (quantify this and know how best to describe this)
As you now backtrack with perfect hindsight you will be able to create a path and a pattern that begins to outline a selling process that will maximizes your persona’s buying process. This is what I like to call the “perfect pitch”. A structured plan that guides your clients on an educational journey that addresses their needs, concerns, and helps them make a buying decision. An exceptional Selling Process is more or a Buying Process and is based on how your client will be most informed and capable of making a great decision; The Perfect Pitch. It is your job to guide this process in helping your prospect make the best decision – to buy, or not to buy.
Many sales processes are so rigid and so structured that they frustrate customers as opposed to empowering them. Be a resource for knowledge as someone that will immediately have a positive impact on their business performance. Unless your product is lame and your services are questionable, your responsibility is to be an asset and a resource to help make your client’s life more productive, profitable, and pleasant. The alternative is for your competition to deliver this experience.
Understand your client, identify their unique characteristics, and know what makes your relationship vital to their productivity and profitability. Like you, they have challenges and when you can help them become successful you will strengthen your relationship and your organization’s future. As you work with your team and your clients to understand how to best maximize this relationship, be alert to changes in their needs and the activities that may need adjustments. Be alert, listen, and encourage a trusting environment where your customers can lead you to new opportunities to help them. By knowing your customer and building a Perfect Pitch to help them buy is a rewarding. Take the time to prioritize this and enjoy the rewards of happier customers and a more productive team.
When you understand your best customers, you can create the personas which depict the characteristics of your best buyers and then create a meaningful process to deliver upon their needs. This becomes your perfect pitch for each persona and you will find that your ability to help more people leads to engaged team, increased sales, and more profitable organization. Understand your customer and build your business to service their growing needs.
