Focused Social Selling - Create Your Buyer Persona

Soon you will be encouraged to cull your contact database in order to a select few hundred of these folks. You will then be able to focus your efforts on these people in order to create and develop the kind of relationships that will lead to continuous repeat and referral business. Salespeople have been doing something similar to this for eons by identifying target accounts that they would like to penetrate and then formulating a plan to secure that business. Years ago, my system was pretty simple … “Spot big game, catch it, and then eat it”. Elephant hunting. Where this new method will differ is that we are now formalizing the process in order to maximize it’s effectiveness by removing any guesswork.

You will first need to create a buyer (or target) persona in order to determine who you want to sell to and what these people look like. We seek to replicate proven success, therefore, how will you choose these select few?[Tweet “Define your buyer persona & target those accounts with the highest likelihood of success!”]

Will you base your selection on meeting certain criteria?

Perhaps you will utilize a scoring system that assigns a point value for each criteria match?

I would suggest yes to both. In fact, I would also say that certain criteria should carry a higher point weight than others. While you might say that this category may be awarded, say 1 – 5 points with 5 being the best match, this subjectivity might be tricky. If you want to do that, perhaps run an A/B test matching this system against a pure Yes or No model. Now, what will you do if you have a good but, not perfect, match? For example, you set 90 points as your minimum and they have 85? I think that the answer to this is … it depends.

We all have to make judgement calls like this everyday. Hopefully, by the end of this article, and your implementation of this task, you will be in a better place to make those determinations. I will say this. When we go about classifying our customers by A, B, and C … some of these borderline prospects may have the potential to fit into your B or C categories.

Start with a sampling of your best customers

Think of your best customers. What makes them that? What might they have in common? Can we replicate them? Who has the best chance of actually doing business with me or referring business to me or that I want to learn from? Who do I want to work with and who am I capable of handling? While I might want to work with Fortune 500 companies (I don’t), do I have the capability to do so and are they likely to hire me? Probably not.

Next, interview these customers in order to discover why they buy from you and your company. The list below will assist you in this discovery and should be applied to both your existing and potential clients. This list is by no mean all encompassing. Please feel free to add your own criteria as you see fit.

Develop your buyer persona

As you are developing your persona, think about the five types of “customers” who I feel should be included in your list …

Existing customers who have the potential to keep on buying and, in fact, purchase at a higher level.
Former customers who you would still want and where you have a chance of bringing them back into the fold. Statistics show that ⅔ of these customers probably left because they felt ignored. Ouch!
Exciting potential prospects.
People who will refer you to other business.
Influencers (mentors and educators) who assist you in other ways.

On to your criteria. Assess, and really consider, your answers to each of these. 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. Still, this experience is a two-edged sword that cuts both ways.

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. I am also a strong believer that you will be judged by the company you keep. Of course, this does mean that if you lie down with dogs, you will get fleas.

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?

Title – I’m a start high and roll down kind of guy but, that is for my services. My ideal candidates, and this will be 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 – If this is an existing customer, this is not necessarily what they have spent in the past but rather what they will be will to invest going forward. You will need to gauge this potential for your prospective customers. Think CLV (Customer Lifetime Value).

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 anytime at all thinking about sending you referrals, particularly when you are not visible … wake up! This is just one more reason why consistent touches are so important! Don’t forget about your influencers and collaborators. How about power partners? Power partners are non-competing business who call upon your same target personnel. This can be a win-win for both of you!

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 interest that you are able to satisfy – No pain = no sale. No need = no sale.

Existing status with a competitor – Will you be able to unhook that relationship? What value can you offer that would entice a switch? Are their chinks in their armor?

Where are they found and how am I going to get to them? – You will need to determine where your honeypot(s) will be found. One more time … you go where your customers are found and not where they are not.

I, for myself, might even add some intangibles including …

Their current skill level on the social networks. I want someone who shows an interest and has basic skills but, they need polish. They are floundering on some level.

Personality traits – I work best with people who are: responsive, have a high sense of urgency, are well organized, polite, appreciative, and who have a sense of humor. I can work with people who don’t have these qualities but, I don’t want to and I don’t need to.

Whether or not you pay your bills on time and, specifically, my bills.

Life’s too short to be working with meatheads. 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. Greed will likely rear its ugly head and you will lust after that which you have little chance of securing or that which you will wish that you had not secured. Either way, time and effort will have been wasted.

A tighter set of qualifications can only lead to increased success. If your final list is embarrassingly small, this only means that you need to go out and find new, and better, prospects. I have spoken with many businesses who lament that “I don’t like my customers.” What they are actually stating is that their current customer base is not delivering recurring quality business. We will look to correct this! You can start by looking in the mirror. While 100% accuracy is an unobtainable goal, you are going to end up light years ahead of where you are now!

Free Resources

A simple Google search for “How do you create a buyer or target persona” will return a ton of results. Here are a few very good resources to get you started …

HubSpot Free Template for Creating Buyer Personas – HubSpot – PowerPoint template

The Sales Development Playbook Written by SDR’s – Datanyze and HubSpot – Ebook

Expand and Improve Your Client Base – Stephen Lahey | Smart Solo Business – Workbook

Finally, be aware that if you sell to different market segments, or to different levels of personnel, or different products to different markets, you will want to create a separate buyer persona for each. In our next article, we will begin to put our buyer personas to work.

Please note – All posts in this series will be tagged FocusedSelling. You will be able to click on that tag at the bottom of any post in the series and all posts in the series, most recent first, will be listed for you. So, if jump in the middle and you want to get started, work from the bottom up. Cutting in line and skipping steps would definitely be ill-advised. #FocusedSelling

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Craig M. Jamieson

Managing Member at Adaptive Business Services

Craig M. Jamieson is a lifelong B2B salesperson, manager, owner, and a networking enthusiast. Adaptive Business Services provides solutions related to the sales professional. We are a Nimble CRM Solution Partner. Craig also conducts training and workshops primarily in social selling and communication skills. Craig is also the author of "The Small Business' Guide to Social CRM", now available on Amazon!