It’s been said that it’s going to be difficult to get where you are going without some sort of map to plot out your course. The same can be said for selling and networking. In fact, you will have multiple maps that together should be used to create a part of your sales process.
Today we are going to focus on the creation of Target Personas and I am going to suggest that you will want to create three …
- Your Target Buyer/Market Persona – What does your best buyer look like and where will you find them? You are going to want to network with those who share at least some of these commonalities.
- Your Target Power Partner Persona – That’s what I call these folks but, I have heard others refer to them as strategic alliances. These people are from non-competing industries who will most likely refer you to potential business since they are folks who call on your same target buyers and markets.
- Your Target Networking Opportunity – There are plenty of meetings and events out there but, you will want to set certain criteria that will allow you to narrow your search.
You will also be establishing search criteria that, among other things, can be applied to many social networks like LinkedIn.
Start by thinking about your best customers
We seek to replicate proven success, therefore, think of your best customers. What makes them that? What might they have in common? Can we clone them? Our goal is to discover who has the best chance of actually doing business with me or referring business to me. Who do I want to work with and who am I capable of handling?
Develop your target buyer/market persona
Assess, and really consider, the value of each of these segments. If one or more of these areas is not important to you … discard them. Remember, you are attempting to map your ideal customer and your ideal opportunity!
- Location – Do you wish to provide your products or services locally, regionally, nationally, or internationally? Where will you not go?
- Previous engagements and relationships are a huge plus providing that they have been positive. The same can be held true if, for example, you have common connections.
- Influence and reputation – A high level of influence will be beneficial providing that this person is willing to share their knowledge, and their connections, with you. Think introductions and referrals.
- Type of business – Your product or service may be industry specific. If it is not, what industries best match your buyer profiles? Your services may fit better in a B2B environment rather that B2C or … you might reverse that order.
- Company size – Size can be defined by: employees, revenues, locations, and many other factors. What sized company is most likely to invest in your services?
- Titles – My ideal candidates, based on company size, will have one of the following titles: Sales Manager or Sales Director or V.P. Sales or President or Owner or G.M..
- Business potential – You will need to gauge this potential for your prospective customers.
- A willingness to refer – Your existing customers should be your best source for referrals. Are they? If not … why? Have you ever even asked them for referrals? Good referrals are like sales gold but, if you think for one minute that your customers spend any time at all thinking about sending you referrals, particularly when you are not visible … wake up!
- Keywords in their social profiles – Can you identify and discover commonalities that fit your persona? Start with your existing customer sampling.
- Their specific areas of need that you are able to satisfy – No pain = no sale. No need = no sale.
You will also likely want to mark certain criteria as being non-negotiables. These are the areas that will kill any opportunity regardless of what everything else tells you and … you are going to have to be ruthless in enforcing this.
Next we need to create the same kind of criteria lists for our target power partners and our target networking opportunities. Here are a few criteria for each to get you rolling …
Target Power Partner Persona
- Industry – What industries have the potential to be your best power partners?
- Reputation – I can’t speak for you, but I want to work with the best. How will you determine this?
- Willingness to collaborate and refer – How will you determine this?
- What can you bring to them if not referrals?
That last one can be a bit tricky. I think of salespeople (or anybody who is charged with securing new business) as either being top-feeders or bottom-feeders. There is no insult involved. Top-feeders get involved in deals very early and, as such, are highly valued by bottom-feeders who want to get in early but, who typically do not.
The challenge is for a bottom-feeder to provide leads and referrals to a top-feeder. If you normally get involved in an opportunity later on, that will be too late for the top-feeder. What to do? You will need to be creative in providing value.
Target Networking Opportunity Persona
- Format? Is this a closed meeting or an open event?
- How often and when do they meet?
- Do the other members share my same general market (B2B or B2C)?
- What types of leads and referrals do they share? What is important to you? Referrals, business intelligence, warm leads, camaraderie?
- Is my industry classification open and will it be protected?
- Will I find my identified power partners here?
- What are the requirements in terms of my investment of time and money?
Since I like you, I have created a document of Target Persona Templates that is available for your immediate download and can also be easily edited to fit your needs. That would be your homework and you have 30 days to complete that before we move on to our next step.
Please note that, these three personas together will provide you with the very foundation that is needed in order to become a master networker!
Craig M. Jamieson
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