You have done the hard work, you’re happy that your product or service solves a problem or makes things easier and your ready to go to market. But where do you start? How do you generate sales? With millions of companies and billions of people, where do you start?
The good news is that there is a tested formula available. It begins with creating buyer personas, this is a list of characteristics the people who are most likely to buy your product or service will have. It can be a good idea to do this with the team, building motivation and getting buy in to the sales process early on.
What are the elements of the buyer persona? These are the top 4 things to consider when selling in the B2B market:
- Segment by sector – are some sectors or industries more relevant to your product or service than others? A labelling service may target the food sector, pharmaceutical companies etc. Break this down further by listing more traits the ideal customer may have for example – type of food company, size of company (broken down by number of employees, turnover, no. of products, no. of offices etc). Remember this is the ideal customer, market research will provide the supporting data.
- Identify the decision maker – who is the person who is most likely to sign off on buying your product? HR Director, Head of IT, CEO or other.
- Influencers – who is likely to be involved in the buying process, for an accounting product the accountant may be the influencer while the Managing Director may be the decision maker
- Locations – where are your targets likely to be based? Are they based in regional hubs, science parks, financial centres?
As you go through this process, you will begin to notice trends, helping you narrow your market research criteria.
So, good luck with defining your market and let us know how you get on.
At FM, we help companies to introduce sales processes on an ongoing basis. We help to research the market, create target lists and advise clients about how to approach and build relationships with potential customers. Get in touch if you would like to find out more.