Hello Reader,
Week 4 of the Sales Plan Outline: Identify.
A reminder of what we covered in Weeks 1 (summary), 2 (targets) and 3 (customers).
Someone replied to me last week and said they thought having a ‘niche’ was dangerous and that they didn’t want to be pigeonholed for doing just one thing.
I don’t agree with the comment and I replied to say that the leading companies tend to ‘own a market space’ but the point is irrelevant anyway.
Building a rock-solid sales plan is not about having one market that you have to stay with for the rest of time.
It’s just about having a clear segment to focus ‘this particular campaign on’.
Think about the alternatives…
Picture this.
- You want to bring new sales in and you appeal to a wide audience.
- You decide to engage with a group of 10,000 companies. Some are in one industry, some are in another.
- There is a mix of who you want to speak with. They are in a mixture of 8 different industries.
- Each has a slightly different set of issues.
- Each goes to different types of events.
- Each reacts in a unique way to messages you share.
- You want to engage with them all though and so decide on a generic approach which covers all. It should be fine right?
But each buyer is unique. Their issues are not the same as other companies in a different industry and who have different challenges. So they ignore it as it’s not quite relevant’…
Or maybe picture this alternative.
- You have a clear target audience.
- It’s a group of customers who you have a real understanding of their problems and desires.
- You really get the challenges they face.
- You also have evidence (more than one) of how you have solved these challenges for other organisations which are really similar to them.
- You ask those 2 customers to become case studies and they readily agree. You have really made a difference in their world.
- You ask them a bit more about where people in their role/industry go to find information on a solution. They share with you the websites they visit. The forums they lurk on, and the events they attend.
- They even give you feedback on some of the content and materials you share.
- They are part of a network of ‘their job role/industry’ and they even offer to introduce you to other people within the group.
- This is not a guarantee of sales and leads but it has certainly made the whole process much easier.
Not only is it easier to resonate with the audience but it is much easier to identify the list of potential customers to talk with.
How can you do this?
How can you go and find the potential customers you want to do business with as part of your sales plan?
How can you identify them?
Here are 5 simple methods to achieve that.
- Firstly, it’s easier to go and find contact information.
- Go to tools like Lusha or Cognism and if you know the target market you are aiming for, you will be able to get access to data. If you don’t want to pay for systems then I have contacts (like my man Nippul) who will get you data (like the image below) IF you are clear about the target data you are looking for. If you are generic, these tools can find information but it will cost you more
- When you know your audience you can find events where these people go and you can attend and try to grab their attention.
- I have a client who is an Insurance broker and in the Sales Plan we have developed for them, there is a specific group of surgeons within the Urology sector they are targeting. Guess what! Urology surgeons have a conference each year… So where are they exhibiting next week? Yes, you guessed it. At the National Conference for Urology Surgeons.
- You can become the go-to person in your space.
- I have a client who is a specialist in recruitment for Pharmaceutical companies. She used to attend general networking events but now she attends specific networking groups where the CEOs and senior executives of pharmaceutical companies go. They ask what she does and immediately they open up a discussion as those attending are intrigued by why she has focused just on this sector. She has won plenty of deals from being the only recruitment executive that works specifically in this field. She owns this space.
- Facebook and LinkedIn group targeting becomes clear.
- There are groups all over the world for specific sectors. My outbound sales plan focuses on the Financial sector. I am a member of a number of these groups and it allows me to find potential prospects that I can engage with. This would be much harder if my audience was anyone and anything (use group image)
- Paid Social – Google and Facebook campaigns are easy to run when you have clarity on who you are targeting.
- I am the shareholder of a company that targets 45 to 65-year-old middle-class women with a clothing product. We run ads on Facebook specifically targeted at this group and we sell products online. The product is suited for a target market and we engage with that. We have in just 3 months built up a database of over 400 target customers (who we can then email and engage with) from knowing our target audience. There is a reason why Google and Facebook are so rich as companies. Its because COUNTLESS organisations waste a fortune marketing in these platforms when they have no clear audience.
Wherever you are going to try and find your potential audience and customers, the message is clear.
It’s easier with a target customer set. You will get better results when you are focused on one specific group. It is much simpler to identify and find out where these prospects are (so that you are ready to engage with them) when there are common characteristics which define them.
Stage 3 of the Bulletproof sales plan is Identifying your potential customers and then understanding them.
Get stages 2 and 3 right, and it makes everything we do from here on in much easier. For example – creating intriguing and interesting content which your potential customers enjoy reading, watching and engaging with.
- What should that content look like?
- What format should you use?
- How can you create content that works?
Stay tuned for next week’s email where I will explain step 4 in more detail.
See you then.
James
PS – If you have enjoyed these emails then you will LOVE a new course I am launching next week. It’s called my ULTIMATE Sales Plan Blueprint. Click here to join the waiting list for when it comes out.
