This posting is a part 2 of a distillation of a presentation made by Liam Venter to the New Zealand RSN network of sales professionals. In part 2 we will cover how to profile the perfect customer and when in the buying cycle it's most efficient to engage with them.
This recession offers perhaps the best opportunity in the lifecycle of your business to grow your market share. As I said in part 1 of 'Smarter things to do, not say in a recession'. "More new millionaires will be created in this recession than any other time in history".
You need a detailed silhouette of your ideal customer. One of the problems facing businesses now is that many salespeople haven't had to prospect much for business in the recent boom - now that they having to they are like the 1980’s computer game –“Leisure Suit Larry goes looking for love in all the wrong places” – or as it more often turned out in Leisure Suit Larry, with the inappropriate style of partner.
In part 1 of this article I suggested that in this recession "On average, each of your clients might be buying less". If this is the case for you then to survive this recession you might need to acquire new customers at a higher rate than ever before, and your plan will need to take this into account.
In World War II they placed silhouettes of enemy planes in cockpits so pilots could readily recognise the target - and this had the added benefit that it also reduced 'friendly fire' mishaps – 'friendly fire' - is that an oxymoron like 'military intelligence'?
Has your sales team developed a written silhouette of an ideal customer?
Does it take into account clients purchasing categories and modes? (I'll explain these in a moment.)
An obvious place to start is to evaluate the profile of the clients you are currently being successful with.
What is it about a client that makes them a good match for your USPs or superior features?
- Is it the size of their organisation?
- The number of branches and warehouses they have?
- Is it a particular industry?
- Is it their financial profile (being able to pay is good!) Some Government funded organisations are for example recession proof.
Purchasing Categories. Most sales training only breaks customers into two categories – customers who are actively seeking a solution and those who are not. I believe it is very profitable to further divide those customers who are not seeking a solution into two categories. The three purchasing categories CSP training addresses are Solution Seekers, Solution Ponderers and Solution Sleepers.
Solution Seekers. Solution Seekers typically make up a very small percentage of the market. At any given time in the market, a small percentage of customers are actively looking for a vendor to provide them with a solution for known compelling issues. These customers are likely to have already established and defined their solution requirements and have probably already spoken to your competitors, who may have assisted them in defining the solution requirements to particularly suit their solutions unique features and advantages.
While solution seekers are probably calling you, selling to this group can often mean that you will be faced with intense competition which will reduce your chance of success and often mean that to win the deal you will need to attract their business with lower pricing. Be aware that purchasers in the solution seekers group may have been shifted from the solution ponderers group by your competitors. In which case your competitors have probably attempted to set the clients requirements for a solution around the unique features and the results that their product can deliver. Breaking into this client group may entail you climbing over your competitor's barbed wire ring fence.
In selling to this group you will want to carefully qualify the customer and their requirements before investing too much time. If their requirements specifically suit the superior and/or unique features of your product, chasing this business can be a productive use of your time. Solution seekers are easy to identify and if your brand image is good they will often contact you.
Solution Ponderers. These are customers who are vaguely aware that they have some issues that they should address at some stage. It may be that they haven't addressed these issues because:
- They do not believe there is a solution.
- The customer has not evaluated and quantified the effect of the issue on their business. It may even be that the issues do not directly effect the key decision makers and the issue owners have not been able to sell their requirements effectively internally to their decision makers.
- They have not had the opportunity (resources or expertise) to evaluate solutions.
- They believe a solution is not cost justifiable.
- They do not have the resources at this time to implement the solution.
- There is no enthusiasm to find a solution.
- There are risks in attempting to implement a solution.
From experience, I have discovered that this is the most profitable group to engage with. The trick is to discover these customers one by one, flush them out en mass, or better still get them to raise their hands and identify themselves to you. This is the group that I believe that most of your advertising effort, budget and prospecting time should be focused on. Identifying solution ponderers can be easier than you might think.
When you shift solution ponderers to solution seekers you will ideally want to achieve it in a manner that enables you ring fence these clients with a desire for specific results that only your unique solution can deliver.
Solution Sleepers. These are customers who do not recognise they have an issue or genuinely do not have any issue that your solution can address. Investing the time to sort out which of this group have compelling issues, (and hence are potential clients) but don’t recognise them and which genuinely do not have compelling issues (and hence are not potential clients) is too time consuming. However, you want to cast your marketing net so that it also encompasses these customers, so that when they come across an issue that your solution can address you are the first person they think of contacting.
What's important here in deciding which group to focus on is:
- Do you have predatory pricing (can you target your competitors coached solution seekers?)
- Sales time cycles
- Competitive playing fields
- Competitive pricing
- How much will you have to educate the market
- Is there a risk of parasitic selling after you have spent money educating the market?
There are also three customer purchasing modes.
1. Start-up
2. Growth
3. Fighting for survival
In boom markets we are more likely to be dealing with companies that have already decided to purchase a solution and they have approached the seller and the seller is just using persuasive techniques to get the client to select them.
In a boom market it’s more of a numbers game. If you can't sell with a short sell cycle move on to the next customer.
In a boom market the focus may be on companies in growth or start-up purchasing modes.
In a recession market where clients are more likely to be fighting for survival they will change incumbent suppliers more readily to seek cost effectiveness and more output from the same resources. This is your chance to grow your market share. As I said in part 1 of 'Smarter things to do, not say in a recession'. My prediction is that “More new millionaires will be created during this recession than any other time in history”.
In the final part of 'Smarter things to do, not say in a recession' I cover how to take advantage of the once in a business lifecycle opportunity this recession offers to aggressively grow your market share. Read this now
by
Liam Venter: Author of the popular sales training manual
'The
Consultative Sales Professional'
You can obtain a copy here
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