Do you understand your buyers?

I had never really thought about the answer to this question until I came across the Buyersphere Project a few years ago.  That was a real eye-opener in so many ways, not least because it showed me what can be measured if you put your mind to it!

It also helped me start to understand and rationalise some of what I was seeing in my own sales and marketing efforts.  More truthfully, in the resistance I was seeing from potential customers.  “Why can’t I get those appointments?  Ah, that’s the reason why.”

I was reminded of it again recently when I came across When Did You Last Map the Buying Process of Your Customers? by Tony Zambito on the Sales Benchmark Index website.

As Tony admits in his response to one of the comments, a better question might be ‘Why Haven’t You Yet…?’

I’ve always been blessed or cursed (depending on your point of view) with selling into tiny niche markets.  For example, in my current position the potential world total market for me is less than 500 sites.  In reality, this boils down to a realistic market size of around 50-100 sites which is being served by 4 or 5 major competitors and about the same number of minor competitors.  With a product that has an average life of 10 years.

Until a couple of years ago, I thought this meant that I didn’t really need to understand my market in any detailed way – it’s so small that they all buy in the same way.

Of course, that’s utter nonsense.  A high value, low volume market just isn’t large enough to afford you the luxury of losing a few orders because “there’s bound to be another one coming around the corner any day.”  Take it from a man who knows, there might be when the market is buoyant but there won’t be when the market is down!

As the market is down at the moment, I’m taking the opportunity to try and start the process of mapping how my customers buy.  It won’t be easy – the volume of orders is very low so there are not many opportunities to garner information; very often I’m two or three steps removed from the end user so there may be two or three different buying processes taking place within the same order; finally, I do still have to do the day job and win orders!

Taking a wider view of my working day, this map is just one aspect that needs to be put in place.  Once it’s done, the qualification steps in my sales pipeline will need revising to reflect the new reality, my marketing collateral will need to be added to, modified or replaced and my front-line colleagues around the world will have to be educated.

That should keep me occupied for a while.  Is my reality reflected in your world?  Let me know.