Expanding your portfolio of work is different at the various stages of business growth, but securing ideal clients is key to the success of a business at any stage — both in terms of profit generation and longevity. Early stage businesses virtually seek any customers they can get. As they acquire a customer base, they refine who they work for. As a business grows, clients who were once attractive become less so, and new clients need to be found to replace them.
1. Back to Your Roots – What Is the Purpose of Your Business?
What transformation will a customer get from buying from you? What need will you satisfy, and is there a real need for what you provide? If you are unsure about “why” people should buy from you, ask yourself “what do you do?”, and then in reply, “and what is the benefit of that?” a minimum of seven times. By the end you will have clarity on the purpose of your business and what makes you different. From this you will be able to define your ideal customer and work out the best channels to market to them.
2. Segment the Market
It makes sense to design the promotion of your service or product to match the target market and communicate the proposition via a channel they will use. In the case of business to business you can segment the market by client type, procurement route, sector and geography. You will then need to identify the “role” of the person who buys in a business and target the role.
3. Who Are the Most Valuable Clients?
An analysis of your customer base from the management accounts should be carried out. The types of information you should collect for each client or project include profit level, number of times purchased, average order value, payment record, ease of doing business with, sector, type of work, and the potential growth and stability of the customer’s business.
Where there is a good relationship with a client, the aim should be to offer them more of your services — they already trust you and are more likely to use you than go elsewhere. The analysis of client importance should then be compared to what is going on in the wider marketplace: check whether the market is mature, rising or declining.
4. Routes to Market
With a clear idea of your most valuable clients, you should be able to work out the most appropriate means to contact them. The internet has added several hundred more channels, but your targets will only be using a small number — so identify them and don’t disregard the pre-internet channels. Lots of people still use networking, exhibitions, and referrals.
5. Getting the Price Right
With differentiation comes the ability to charge more. If the customer is concerned about price, you are probably offering your service to the wrong person, or they have misunderstood how you have promoted yourself. Having a reliable pricing feedback loop will reduce the number of failed sales. Having no failed sales means you are pricing too low. Decide what an acceptable success/failure rate should be and work towards it.
The whole process from identifying potential clients to recording pricing information and customer satisfaction levels should be recorded in a CRM system.
