Market focus; the essential foundation to how and where you get your business. In “Market Focus – the Proposition” we looked at what you sell (your proposition) and the mechanisms used to understand your proposition through the eyes of your prospects and customers. In this article we focus on who you should be selling it to (your target market), but still to come is how you get there (the routes to market).
Often a supplier’s perception of their market does not stand the test when it comes to asking companies within that market if they see that supplier as important to their business. The fact that you may have sold something to a number of companies within a particular business sector does not make you an expert on the business of that sector. This leads to the common mistake of thinking that you have a “vertical” solution when the customer sees you as a supplier of a “horizontal” solution.
Target Market - Who should you sell to?
There are a multitude of different inputs to answering this question, many of which are specific to particular market sectors and segments. For example, if you sell something that is of value to small insurance brokers your view of your market is very different to someone who sells fleet car services to large corporations.
Looking at the wider market and cutting it down to meaningful sectors and segments is key to effective and efficient selling. If your plan says, for example, that you need 12 new customers in 2006, you need to start with a list of suspects of no more than 80 – 100.
With a little desk research you can probably reduce the list even further. But why do this? Simply, the smaller the list of suspects, the more focused you can be with your selling effort. The use of concentrated fire power on a small number of suspects will give a higher return for your sales effort. It is about rifle shot rather than buck shot. If you have a list of suspects in the multiple 100’s then you will spend a lot of time trying to talk to people who are not interested - the “needle in a haystack” technique.
To determine your target market, you need to decide where you want to sell, who is most likely to buy from you, when and why. The characteristics of the target market containing those suspects who could derive value from your products and services provide further input to the qualification process. By using a process of careful profiling and qualification you will be selecting the most likely candidates for new customers which will enable you to optimise the use of your valuable selling time. The bottom line is focus, focus, focus.
Tips:
* Don’t be misled into thinking that a sale to one customer in a particular sector constitutes a vertical offering or that other companies in that sector will want to buy from you.
* If you do not have a vertical offering then approach your market horizontally.
* Having defined the value that you deliver to your existing customers, you can go on to identify the characteristics of others who could benefit from buying from you. This creates your qualification profile for new prospects.
* Use the qualification profile to choose your market and within that market specific sectors and segments.
* Drilling down further into your chosen market you can generate a list of suspects, i.e. companies which appear from the outside to have the characteristics to become customers.
* Now you are in a position to proactively pursue your chosen market with your clearly defined proposition.
Copyright © Performative plc 2001-2006. All rights reserved.
Market Focus – Who will buy ? - To learn more about this author, visit Phil Shipperlee's Website.
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Phil Shipperlee
(Visit Phil's Website)
Phil Shipperlee, CEO and Founder of
Performative, started in sales with
Olivetti in 1969 and progressed to senior
roles in Sales & Marketing in the Software
& IT Services sector; UK country manager,
head of global sales & marketing based in
the USA, head of European operations (UK,
France, Benelux, Germany and Italy). Phil
was instrumental in creating a selling
process integrating 12 acquisitions and
used throughout operations in North
America, UK, Europe, Australia, Japan and
India. Since 1980 he has built and run
several successful businesses.
Performative provide business performance
improvement solutions to companies across
the UK. There is an indisputable link
between the overall performance of the
whole business and the performance of the
sales operation, hence, our core focus
commences in the sales operation but also
looks upward to the Board and its
strategy, and outward at the integration
of the selling operation with the rest of
the organisation.
Special areas of knowledge: the creation
of high performance selling operations
within any corporate environment, solving
the business issues of SMEs, using and
selling offshore solutions, M&A,
post-acquisition integration.
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The New York Times carried an article today with the headline - Gap Is in Need of a Niche.
