Are you sitting on a wealth of untapped information?
If your business is already established rather than just starting up and you have a broad customer base, you’re sitting on a potential gold mine of information that you won't need to dig too deep to access!
Look to your best customers first:
Start profiling your existing customers: If you’ve already done this go through the 10-step plan outlined below anyway and just check that you haven’t missed anything important to factor into your equations. You can do this whether your company is in business-to-business or business-to-consumer.
1. List your best customers - typically they will be 20% of your total customer base
2. Write down what it is about them that makes them ‘best customers’
3. Next you can look for the more obviously identifiable similarities amongst these customers:
4. Then look at where they came from
5. Then you should review who influences the buying decision
6. Establish the Decision Critical Factors in becoming and staying a customer
7. Note the typical buying cycle
8. Assess what share of each customer’s potential business you own
9. Would they recommend your product(s) or service(s)?
10. Note the answer for each and why they would or wouldn’t recommend you
Realistically you may not know the answers to all of the above points but, as these are your best customers, they should be happy to provide you with the information
But don't forget the rest:
Now that you’ve analysed your best customers, how are you going to use the information you’ve uncovered?
Look at the remaining 80% of your current customers plus your lapsed customers and go through the same exercise with them. Then see whether any of the companies match the identifiable similarities of your best customers. It could be that those with a close match have need of more of your product or service, but either you or they haven’t identified that need yet, or it’s being fulfilled elsewhere - Now is your chance to find out and do something about it!
Take the criteria of ‘identifiable similarities’ and see if there is a specialist list available that matches the majority of them and that you could rent/buy for prospecting purposes.
Finally, if you come across any really awful customers during this whole exercise, you might like to take a view on your future dealings with them…
Remember: It is a fact that pursuing unqualified business is one of the most common reasons companies fail to reach their revenue targets.
I hope you find lots of valuable nuggets in your potential gold mine!
You'll find lots of sales tips and pointers at http://www.sellingforbusiness.com
Your potential gold mine - To learn more about this author, visit Linda Mattacks's Website.
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Linda Mattacks
(Visit Linda's Website)
"Linda Mattacks is one of those rare
professionals who combine deep
strategy-awareness with a thoroughly
practical approach to business marketing.
What's more, she is as much a hard-nosed
and sales-driven results seeker as she is
an intuitive people person who understands
what makes everyone tick. She has built a
wealth of experience in sales training,
business research, marketing campaign
planning and project management. Linda has
helped organisations of all types and
sizes in the UK and Europe to learn more
about their customers and markets, and
turn that knowledge into revenue. Her
mature and human manner has won her both
business partners' and colleagues'
complete trust, which has opened many new
opportunities for all involved.” - Jaakko
Alanko - MD McCann-Erickson, Business
Division, London, England ... Linda
Mattacks M IDM (the Institute of Direct
Marketing) is a trainer and mentor. She
has developed Selling For Business, a
course that combines the sales, research
and contact marketing skills that enable
individual entrepreneurs and small
businesses to compete successfully with
large organisations. Please visit www.sel
lingforbusiness.com for more details
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