If your small business is purely pursuing market share, then don’t read this article.
But, if you want to locate more of your best customers, your most profitable customers, then please dive into the suggestions below and integrate them into your small company’s marketing.
Quickly.
You know your company must create a great Brand, and convey that brand through a powerful Package you present to your customers and prospects. But how do you establish which prospects to chase? You simply must determine this before you launch your next marketing effort, be it a yellow pages ad or a new slogan on a business card or brochure. You need to know your audience.
And here’s a simple exercise that involves your marketing team board of advisors; your Bloom Team.
First, select four of your top ten most profitable customers. We’re not talking gross sales, here; you know too well that’s not what you take to the bank at the end of the day. Pick four customers that really deliver bottom-line profits to your business. Choose the four that you’d like to turn into forty if you had a magic wand to wave over your customer base.
Next, list three common features that each of these customers share. Just a sentence or two on each feature should cover it.
Now, ask your Bloom Team to do the same thing. You tell them the names of the four customers, but don’t give your staff the three common features you came up with. Ask them to list their own.
If you don’t have a Bloom Team assembled yet, just pick three of your best Achievers and get this simple exercise into gear as quickly as you can. You urgently need the business intelligence to market smarter.
Don’t let the staff swap notes with each other. We’re sure you’ll figure out how to get that done. Simply asking them not to is a good first step. If they’re mature enough to be part of the Bloom Team, they’ll understand the importance of their individual opinion to the company’s marketing and sales efforts.
Gather the results together, and examine them yourself. Later, you can share these results with your Bloom Team, but give yourself a day or two to absorb and reflect on what this exercise has taught you.
This is a Pareto exercise in 80/20 thinking. Here are some things to learn and look for:
Do the Achievers (your best!) agree on why the best customers are the best customers? Did any of the Achievers uncover an insight you missed? Remember, this is a place to start and grow from, not an indictment of your current staff.
Is there a way to identify who those best customers will be, before they ever become best customers? In other words, is there any way you can know (and then teach) who will be your most profitable customers at the get-go, and then devote more people resources to securing them?
You can grow this exercise, over time, to include many of your staff, not just the Achievers and not just your sales or customer service staff. If you can teach your front-line employees to successfully identify and secure even another 5% of your “future best customers” it’ll be well worth the time you spend in teaching them how to do it.
Good staffers care about little clients. Our goal in this exercise isn’t to crush this human trait. Little clients can be–should be–great referral sources. We want to keep them. Rather, our goal with this exercise is to help your staff learn to understand that every customer deserves your best efforts, but some customers deserve more of your time.
Happy Prospecting.
© 2006 Marketing Hawks
