Understanding your ideal customers and how to sell to them
Jan 31, 2019
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Leaders in sales and marketing discuss the importance of understanding ideal customers and selling to them. They emphasize the need for defining ideal and non-ideal customers and prioritizing features based on target audience. They explore the elements of a compelling story, team alignment in selling a product, and importance of pipeline and collaboration between marketing and sales.
Defining ideal and non-ideal customers helps maintain focus and prioritize business goals.
Effective positioning involves creating a narrative that highlights unique differentiators and contrasts with competitors.
Deep dives
Defining Ideal and Non-Ideal Customers: Lessons from Closet I.O.
Steli Efti, founder of Closet I.O., emphasizes the importance of defining both ideal and non-ideal customers. In order to stay focused and prioritize, it is crucial to explicitly outline who your product or service is intended for and who it is not. By creating customer profiles and even anti-customer profiles, teams can maintain a laser focus on their target audience and avoid wasting time on potential customers that do not align with their business goals.
Effective Positioning: The Power of Contrast
April Dunford, CEO of Ambient Strategy, stresses the significance of effective positioning in a crowded marketplace. Rather than just trying to make an existing product better, companies should focus on creating a narrative that highlights their unique differentiators. By contrasting the benefits and solutions their product offers with those of competitors, businesses can stand out and make it easier for customers to understand their value proposition.
Building a Compelling Sales Narrative: Focus on Contrast, Analogies, and Structure
Doug Landis, Growth Partner at Emergence Capital, emphasizes the importance of building a compelling sales narrative. He suggests using contrast, analogies, and storytelling techniques to engage and resonate with customers. By leading with their best differentiators and focusing on the core value, companies can differentiate themselves from competitors who try to sell multiple features. Landis also highlights the need for structured storytelling to keep the audience engaged and presents contrast as a powerful storytelling tool.
Creating Alignment: Listening to Unmet Customers and Building Strong Partnerships
Intercom's team highlights the importance of creating alignment among product, sales, marketing, and support teams. They discuss how product teams should actively seek feedback from customers who were unable to adopt their product, enabling them to incorporate these insights into their roadmap. The podcast also emphasizes the value of collaborative partnerships between marketing and sales, as well as the importance of cross-functional alignment in building a strong and customer-centric organization.
What gets you to your first $50 million is not what’s going to get you to $100 million. You've got to constantly review your ideal customer profile, positioning and sales strategies. In today's episode, we'll hear from leaders like Des Traynor, April Dunford, Doug Landis, Steli Efti, and Sydney Sloan speak to those topics and more.