Example
Harry, an extremely technical customer, walks into a computer store. True to form, he starts blurting out abbreviations such BIOS, SDRAM, LDAP, and the like. He needs to buy a math coprocessor, a 120-MB RAM video card, and sophisticated multimedia software to upgrade his computer. The initial urge of Joan, the salesperson, is to say, “How many do you want?”
Instead, Joan wants to build long-term business relationships and repeat business. She helps her customers achieve their goals on a consistent basis. Therefore, the question she asks is: “What are you trying to accomplish with these components?” Harry cannot help but feel that Joan has his best interests (goals) at heart. Harry explains that he wants to use these components to more quickly create video productions with stereo sound. Joan advises Harry that those types of applications consume a lot of memory. She recommends purchasing 500 MB of RAM to prevent his computer from crashing.
Joan probably could have sold him those components without knowing his goals. However, in doing so, she risks that a week later a frazzled customer returns complaining how the parts she sold him did not “work.” His computer keeps crashing because of out-of-memory errors. He demands his money back and is never seen again.
Significant differences and outcomes exist between trying to satisfy needs and helping customers achieve their goals.
Note If Harry didn’t know what he was trying to achieve (goals), Joan could have suggested some from a Market Profile sheet she developed. There are no “What do you mean, what do I mean?” questions with superstars.
Determining Which Goals You Can Achieve
The only customers’ goals you pursue are the ones your products achieve. Your potential goes up as the number of your features— especially unique strengths—that could achieve their goals goes up. Although you think about specific products in this planning stage, do not mention specific products to the customers until you find out their purchasing requirements. You will examine this topic in Chapter 4.
Market Profile sheets motivate you to think about goals in ways customers in specific market segments do. You think about which goals you would want to achieve if you shared their organizational characteristics and positions. For instance, what would be your goals if you were the vice president of manufacturing for a personal computer manufacturer? One of your main goals would probably be minimizing production downtime. You then think about which unique strengths or strongest features of your products best achieve those goals. In addition, which systems of evaluation will accurately reflect the achievement of customers’ goals via your unique strengths?
The following five-step evaluation can help you to fill out your Market Profile sheets accurately:
Review your past sales successes to see which types of customers produce the most wins.
Determine which organizational characteristics they have in common.
Classify them as market segments.
Evaluate the top three sales in each market segment for the goals, measurable benefits, and systems of evaluation they used.
Review with your two top customers in each market segment what you think their goals, measurable benefits, and SOEs are. Solicit their feedback for additions, deletions, and modifications.
Using this process, you will also end up with references that have measurable dollar savings—and customers who understand why doing business with you is a smart and well-thought-out decision.
Note The Science of Sales Success’s focus is on helping customers to achieve their predictable professional goals. Customers’ personal goals, like spending more time with their families or becoming financially secure, have too many intangibles which make them unpredictable. In addition, customers usually reserve discussions about their personal goals for salespeople who earned their trust by helping them to achieve their measurable professional goals. Again, it helps if you understand how your contacts’ performance is measured, which, in essence, helps to form their goals.
Protecting Yourself Against Bust Cycles
When selecting which market segments to pursue, one final analysis—economic sensitivity—remains to be taken into account. Economic sensitivity is a measure of how a market segment (and the customers within it) will react to changing economic conditions. It includes the following three categories:
Cyclical. The market segment follows the general economy. If the economy is booming, so is the market segment. If the economy slows down, so does the market segment. Typically, market segments in the manufacturing sector are cyclical in nature. For example, in a strong economy, people buy new products to support growth and replace old ones rather than repair them.
Countercyclical. The market segment goes in the opposite direction to the general economy. If the economy is booming, the market segment slows down. If the economy slows down, the market segment grows. Typically, market segments in the service sector are countercyclical in nature. A weak economy means people repair products rather than replace old ones.
Noncyclical. The market segment includes companies with both manufacturing and service business units. Therefore, these market segments will redirect their investments (that is, sales opportunities) depending on the direction and condition of the economy.
The key to consistency is to make sure you balance your market segment so value-driven and profitable sales opportunities exist during all three economic conditions.
Market Profile Sheets
The Market Profile sheet analyzes individual customers in specific market segments in terms of the concepts discussed in this chapter. Use your Product Profile sheet from Chapter 2 (Exhibit 2-5) to fill in the information for the product and unique strengths feature columns. A Microsoft Word template for these sales tools is found as a downloadable file on www.measuremax.com. You need to fill out the following information:
Company Name.
Market Segment. The more specific you are in defining your market segments, the greater the chances that customers will express interest in the potential goals you mentioned to them on your initial sales contact. Remember the hospital example.
Economic Sensitivity. Determine whether the market segment falls into the cyclical, countercyclical, or noncyclical category. Try to balance your market segments to ensure consistency of sales opportunities during all types of economic conditions.
Organizational Characteristics. The more detailed these are, the more confident you can be about identifying customers’ goals accurately.
Contact Name. Person you are contacting or working with.
Position. An individual’s position coupled with the organizational characteristics determines his or her potential goals. One position can have more than one goal category. For example, a vice president of manufacturing’s interest probably lies in the goal categories of both operations and finances.
Previous Market Segment Success Stories. Run on your record of expertise in their industries.
Profit Levels. What profit margins does the company generate? Find out this number via the company’s Web site or annual reports, or ask during MP 2: Measure Potential.
Annual Sales Dollars. Find out this number via the company’s Web site or annual report, or ask during MP 2: Measure Potential.
Number of Employees. Find out this number via the company’s Web site or annual report, or ask during MP 2: Measure Potential.
Annual Growth Rate. Find out this number via the company’s Web site or annual report, or ask during MP 2: Measure Potential.
Current Use of Similar Products or Services in Dollar Amount. Ask during MP 2: Measure Potential.
Potential Use of Similar Products or Services in Dollar Amount. Ask during MP 2: Measure Potential.
General Goal Category. General goals that interest customers.
Typical Goals. Subsets within the general goal category. For example, the goal of improves reliability is a subset of operations; the goal of increase return on investment is a subset of finance.
Benefits of Achieving Goals. The benefits of the goals expressed in time or money. Please note that a goal can have more than one benefit.
Systems of Evaluation. The methods customers use to assign value to their goals. You win when these SOEs accurately reflect the measurable value of their goals and connect to your unique strengths.
Product. The products that achieve the goals.
Unique Strength Features. Review the summary on unique strengths from Chapter 2 before you classify a feature as such. Again, not every feature is a unique strength. As a reminder: Sometimes your uniquestrengths occur at the organizational level (location of distribution centers, stocking levels, warranty policies, technical support, payment terms, and the like) and not at the product levels. If you do not have any unique strengths, try to redefine your market segments, packaging (Chapter 2), or use your strongest features and denote it as such.
Note You can still win sales without unique strengths as long as you show how your products produce measurable benefits from achieving customers’ goals better than competitors.
Top Two Competitors. List your top two competitors in this market segment.
Competitive Unique Strengths. List your top two competitors’ unique strengths.
Note If more than one position is involved with the sale, you would create a new Market Profile sheet to reflect that position’s goals.
The Market Profile sheet in Exhibit 3-6 on the previous spread builds on the Product Profile sheet Steven Smartsell used in Chapter 2. His Market Profile sheet is for Positron, a computer manufacturer, and its vice president of manufacturing, Olivia Ontime.