Your Customer – You Have to Know Them to Love Them
A little while ago the mid 30’s co-owners of a project management company, Bob and Nick contacted us for help in their Marketing and Sales area. They told us they were not getting the sales they needed to sustain and grow their company and had to recently lay off a number of their employees.
As we worked with them we discovered their problem was that they did not a have a specific sales process. While both Bob and Nick and sales responsibility they had never taken the time to develop and record an actual sales process. A key piece that was missing from their sales effort was having an understanding of who their customer was and what motivated them to make a purchase decision?
As we worked with them they discovered that the typical person who would make the go or no go decision on using Bob and Nick’s company had a specific profile:
- Male
- Age 35-45
- Middle Management
- Been with their company for 15 years
- Married with children
- Had a Bachelor’s Degree
- Wanted to move up in the company
- Wanted to stay with their company long term
- Wanted to avoid excessive risk in their projects
- Their objective that the projects go smoothly and be delivered on time
Once they developed this profile they realized their buyer was a “company man” who wanted to stay long term at their employer and retire from there.
The Power of the Profile
Armed with this information they were able to craft their sales 
presentation around words and pictures that communicated how their project management services would provide the assurance to their customer their projects would go smoothly. Their projects would be delivered on time and result in the customer’s advancement within the company. None of this would have been possible without first having developed a profile of their customer.
Therefore, you want to fully understand what your customer looks like so you will have the information needed to decode your customer’s motivating factors in making a purchasing decision. Another reason to determine what your customers look like is to calculate how many of them exist, thus enabling you to ascertain the size of your potential market. An excellent way of determining this is to develop a profile of your customer.
By creating a profile of the specific characteristics common to your target customer (or market segment), you will be able create an effective marketing and sales function within your business.
Profile Attributes
In developing a customer profile there can be almost an untold number of factors you could identify. Listed below is a sample of factors may want to ascertain about your customer:
- Gender
- Age
- Marital status
- Family size (adults and children)
- Education level
- Typical Degrees
- Total income level
- Discretionary income level
- Spending habits
- Occupation
- Geographical area
- Demographics/culture/religion
- Ethnic and cultural background and practices
- Social status
- Spare-time activities
- Choice of information sources (TV, radio, internet, social media, etc.)
- Tourist, seasonal, or permanent resident status
- Early adopter of new products/service (e.g., Apple® product devotees)
- Other factors or special interests
Developing Your Customer Profile
There are two basic ways to ascertain the above information. First, observation or analysis of your current customer base. Second, performing research via the internet or accessing industry specific sources to identify what your market’s typical customer looks like.
Keep in mind that all of your customers will not fit your customer profile, but there will be a “central tendency” of your customer. Also, you could have more than one than central tendency of customers. When this occurs all you have do is modify your sales process to the particular factors in each profile.
Garnered with knowing and recording your customer’s profile you will be able optimize your Marketing and Sales functions. This will result in a more effective sales process that will enable you, just like Bob and Nick, to grow your revenue and profits.
If you need assistance in fully understanding your target audience and growing your sales please contact us so we can show you how to use this concept to tremendously increase your revenue and take your business where you want it to go.
george.horrigan@FountainheadConsultingGroup.com
www.FountainheadConsultingGroup.com
Office phone: (770) 642-4220
