Is your marketing generating dream leads? Are your sales people spending at least half their time selling to dream customers?
If you answered no to these questions you might be one of the many companies, large and small, that have been bit by the digital demise of bare-bones-selling. Bare-bones-selling is about defining the customers you want to win (dream customers) and executing with targeted, specific actions to win those dream customers. The digital demise is when customers and companies start to believe that digital connection between buyer and seller is enough to drive big decisions. Dream customer traits are…
Need – There is clear benefit from the use of your product at a scale that makes sense for you.
Time – They have the time necessary to implement and train people how to get benefit.
Success – Visible and growing customers that enhance your VISABILITY, CREDABILITY & VIABILITY
Budget – They can spend enough to get what they really need in terms of product and service.
Winners – There are decision makers who get personal wins when you win.
I have talked to three CXOs in just the past week who said their pipeline was so full that, “We have all the leads we can deal with right now.” The bulk of the leads were generated by trade shows and digital activity. Last week was the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), the largest consumer electronics trade show of the year and all three clients attended.
One of the companies went to CES with the intent of meeting specific prospects. The other two went to do booth duty hoping that the right customer would wander by. Not surprisingly, the team that had scheduled meetings with dream customers with very specific objectives felt CES was a very good investment. The other two felt CES was a waste of time and dry-cleaning after sweating through their clothes over three days of booth duty.
All three companies are very active on social media. They have compelling web sites and post great blogs. Their knowledge and content is very good. Not surprisingly, their social media is generating a lot of interest in their products and services. How do they know that? Well, as their sales VP says, “We have all the leads we can deal with right now.” Their sales teams are fully occupied chasing leads generated from people dropping business cards off at the CES booth and those who have clicked the box asking for more information on their web sites. The leads are actually creating a lot of sales transactions too.
In each case I asked the sales team, “Of the leads you’re getting what percent are coming from your dream customers?” In two of the cases I was asked what a dream customer is. My answer was, “What specific customers do you want to win and by when?” The answer, “It’s hard to tell who’s going to log onto our web site.”
“If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will get you there.” Lewis Carroll. “If you don’t know who your dream customers are any customer will do and they will use up all your sales resource just like a dream customer would.” Rick Wong. Where would you rather spend your time?
While social media and digital devices make it much easier to share information with more people, it doesn’t mean we’re generating dream leads that turn into dream customers. Anything that has the potential of significantly enhancing a customer’s business has to go through decision makers who need to establish that they are buying from a trusted and respected seller.
If your brand is Microsoft or Apple you are already pretty far down the road of trust and respect. Even so why didn’t enterprises flock to Windows Server in the late 90’s? Why did enterprises reject iPads in the workplace just three years ago? It took bare-bones-selling to win a few dream customers before it scaled.
It’s worth the time to identify your dream customers so you know who you want to sell to before you start selling.
©2014 Rick Wong, The Five Abilities® LLC
