Build the Amazing Foundation of Your Future Sales on Attracting the Right Customers, Not the Easiest Customers!
It’s Your Choice to Make Right Now!
What business or consumer is your perfect customer?
If you haven’t asked yourself this question over and over and have a clear image and deep understanding of this ideal customer, you better start getting busy right now.
Many of us are extremely busy with our daily challenges of business to evaluate how we are doing with this foundational principle; we drift away from who and what we are as a business because of putting out daily fires.
Are you looking for many transactional buyers? If you are selling bulk number 2 pencils at a cheap price and small margins, maybe that strategy could work to get them in the door and hope that change their buying habits of looking for the least expensive number 2 pencils.
This price-volume strategy ends up being a race to the bottom to see who can still stay in business.
Or are you looking for the relationship buyer who will stick with you because you deliver a great product at a great value?
I know what I want….
If you’ve read the introduction article in this series, you’ll understand I’m encouraging every small, medium, and even large business to work on formulating their sales machine strategy and implement the plan to automate your sales and be as efficient as possible.
You’ve probably achieved a level of success in your business and industry. But are looking at how you can duplicate yourself so you can grow?
Growing Your Herd (Leads and Customer Base) is the Lifeblood of your Business!
To increase sales, you need to be very good at attracting the right traffic to your sales machine.
In the commercial B2B sales example I’ve been talking about, I was able to identify the exact type of customer we wanted, and then we would flood them with our company information, product information, and eventually turn the cold leads into part of our herd, and eventually a paying customer.
It got to the point when I received a call from a warm or hot lead, the deal was essentially done, just the formal aspects of the transaction needed to be completed.
This is a far better way to operate than having dozens of “salespeople” cold calling to try to get enough business to stick and pay the bills.
It’s much harder to turn a cold call sale into a relationship buyer for sure. They seem to be more transactional and high maintenance. These are typically a one and done type of buyer.
A friend of mine introduced me to a carpet cleaning company owner (Zerorez franchise) several years ago. This company had a great reputation of doing an outstanding job and built a lot of repeat customers.
Their problem?
They recently purchased a couple more vehicles and hired the supporting crews to run the investment. It was critical timing to grow sales and keep the guys busy, but their sales were stagnant.
They tried traditional sales and marketing techniques in neighborhoods around their office and didn’t get many residential jobs opportunities.
They asked me to review at their materials and strategy to see what I could see that may be causing the lack of success.
What was the problem I noticed right away?
They missed their mark with the audience.
They were trying to attract the wrong traffic to their website and phone number.
How Did I Figure That Out?
As I drove to their office, I surveyed a few neighborhoods they were targeting to see what they were like.
What did I notice?
I would have bet good money these were a lot of rental homes…. And there were plenty of apartments in the area too.
So, after we talked for a bit, I asked about their “perfect customer”, and it was apparent they needed homeowners who lived in their homes and properties of a certain value range.
And I was right…. After checking on the county property rolls in this area, the high number of rental homes and apartments in this area was staggering. These were low-end starter homes as well.
A quick easy change in the targeted area and voila…. Their sales efforts began to pay off…. It wasn’t rocket science, just a little paying attention to the details.
How Did I Define the Targeted Sales Audience for My Commercial Windows Customer?
We first targeted hotel chain new construction projects to sell windows from the outset.
Early on, I realized the hotel chains had “approved vendor” lists of products for building the franchise. The owner, architect, and general contractor could go outside of the approved vendors list but had to go through an extensive process for approval. We had to find the general contractors that were fed up with the “approved” vendors and were willing to go outside the system to get the job done. It was a small segment for sure.
To get on those brand approved lists, it took a lot of time, plenty of pay-to-play money, and franchisor kickbacks. This was not a game we wanted to play.
In doing my research before committing to help this entrepreneur, I found out most general contractors were not happy with most of the approved window manufacturers. Their customer service was terrible. The product quality was marginal, and the communications stunk from these game-players.
Our plan?
Be better on price, quality, service, and communication. And get that message out in all communications.
I built the sales side around those traits…. And built the staffing to achieve those goals.
During the Covid period, many hotel projects were put on hold… so we targeted apartment builders to adapt to the changing times since that category was growing rapidly. They seem to have the ability to use whomever vendor they needed, so it was easy to provide better service than some of the big guys making and selling windows….
In fact, one big builder said during the sales cycle…. Bill, you have “SUPERPOWERS!”
That was a nice compliment, but I had to ask…. What do you mean superpowers?
Bill, you return your emails and phone calls.
To me, that’s a normal course of business.
To others, it’s a SUPERPOWER!
Lesson learned.
Find and attract the right buyers, grow your herd, beat the competition by using your SUPERPOWERS, adapt to changing times, and you will grow your business!