Modern Prospecting 1.2

 

 

 

photo:  Steamed hardshell crabs, dirty style, from the Chesapeake Bay, as served at my favorite Maryland eastern shore crab house, The Wellwood Inn.  With ice cold beer, this is my most favorite food. 

 

 

ONE SIZE NEVER FITS THEM ALL 

 

 

No matter what it is we do or sell, it is the buyer who decides why they buy it and how they will use it.

 

As the inventor, designer or whatever role we might have as the seller, our product knowledge may be enormous and our opinions well validated but the purchase decision is not ours.  Only the buyer knows why they decided to make this purchase, today.

 

If we were to ask our most recent customers why, we would be surprised as to what the real reasons are.  Each has their own system of values and they have their own situation of current need and want.  We may think we are silver-tongued angels of mercy, but the truth has more to do with timing than tongue-wagging.

 

In a slightly more general sense, we serve different niche markets.  Each one is different from the next. Some are different simply because of geography, some due to gender, some due to climate or season .... but variables there are and they all affect the buyer's mood and decision-making process.

 

The grave mistake is to presume to know why a buyer buys. 

 

Eric Ries wrote a book about an idea that he and his partners adored.  They built it, went to market and sold none.  He recounts this story and the many lessons learned from it in his book The Lean Start-Up.  Their business was saved when they did make one sale and then visited that customer and learned why that buyer bought; what they valued and what they did not.  Armed with real market data, they tweaked the product and sold another one.  And visited and questioned this buyer, too.

 

After 10 customer visits, the product was re-designed and re-tooled.  And many sales were made thereafter.

 

We may not visit each one of our customers, but, we can recognize that every niche market we aim at, is different.  And if we think about each one, and acknowledge that each is different than the other, we can develop the right messaging and the right value propositions for each niche.

 

Consider the audience first.  What do they want?  The smaller we can define our niches, the more specific we can see them and the more appropriately we can communicate with them and the more effective (and attractive) will we be. 

 

Each market at which we aim requires its own messaging, prospecting and sales strategy. One size never fits them all.