What Is The Profile Of Your Ideal Customer?
Reprinted with permission from Eric Albertson’s SucceedingInBusiness.com Newsletter. (Copyright, 1998-2007, Eric Albertson, SucceedingInBusiness.com.)
Have you ever heard of something hardcore marketers call a persona?
(Check out persona for more info.)
Neither had I, until about 15 years ago, when I was trying to win a $100 million dollar sale at Boeing, as a lone sales rep against teams from IBM and HP.
I didn’t know anyone at Boeing, a company that, at that time, had more than 200,000 employees. I had to figure a way to become known fast, or give up.
I got lucky. It turns out an old work associate had hired on at Boeing. The real luck was that I discovered the concept of the persona, also known as the ideal customer.
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My old associate told me all about the Boeing culture and the various types of people who worked there. His information showed me how to create a persona that represented each group so that I could have a clear picture in my mind of how to sell. More important, I had a perspective to relate to.
I checked out my composite personas with my friend and others at Boeing and, after some edits and lots of questions, I began to create messages and offers aimed at these personas. I also began to behave in ways that I thought would appeal to the personas. WOW. I had discovered something big.
Suddenly my phone calls were returned. People referred me around. People at Boeing that I had never heard of wanted to get on my schedule. I was invited to meetings through three layers of security. People wanted to know if I could help them. I was floored by the change.
How had I done this? When I created these personas or descriptions of people in categories, like engineering, I found myself describing in writing where they lived, what they did on weekends, what they worried about, how they got promoted, how they dressed, what they drove to work, where they vacationed, who they voted for, etc.
Nothing that I wrote was perfect, but in general, it was close enough that my targets in engineering at Boeing felt like I was aligned with them and understood them. I decided to call this person I was writing about, “Sam.â€Â
With Sam in mind, I began to tailor my offers, my messages, my tone of voice and everything else I did, including how I dressed when interacting or attempting to interact. Some of the engineers even asked me how long I had been an engineer, and were shocked when I told them I was in sales. At this point they often said, “Oh, you are a sales engineer.â€Â
I did the same thing for the other roles or personas that I was selling to. I had similar results.
One day, I was called into a meeting where I was told that a request for proposal was going to be sent to me, as well as to IBM and HP, for a huge project. I was also told that I shouldn’t worry and that it was just a formality. It suddenly dawned on me, as they begin to discuss implementation plans, that I had won what turned out to be over $100 million in business.
When I asked why, everyone said the product was good but the alignment with their needs, wants and culture was what had carried the day. They trusted me and knew I understood them.
What Is the profile of your ideal customer?
Today, when I consult with the independent sales rep, the medium-sized company, or the Fortune 500, with headquarters in New York City, I usually start with: To be successful in business you must have a profile of your ideal customer. You need at least one persona.
If you don’t know what your ideal customer looks like, ask yourself these questions:
§ How will you recognize him or her when the two of you meet?
§ How do you know where you should be spending your advertising dollars?
§ How do you know where you should be marketing and promoting your business?
§ What kinds of networking events, conferences and conventions should you be attending?
Most people I talk to don’t really know any of these things about their target markets. Their “Sams.â€Â
Every day, I talk with business owners and salespeople, and I ask them this simple question: What is the profile of your ideal customer?
The silence is deafening.
Creating Your Ideal Customer Profile
The easiest way to create a picture of your ideal customer is to look at your current customer base. Here are 10 questions to ask yourself about each of your 10 best customers:
