How can you use buyer personas to improve your client prospecting?

It is highly unlikely that you would get to define the persona right away. But defining it right is the most important step where you would need time, and people usually skip it if they are in a hurry. If you do not define your buyer persona's within the buying committee - you might make the lives of your Sales Development team difficult. Now, the easiest way to start building the persona map is to build it from the scratch. Attempt drafting personalized pitches to every prospect and you will start deriving patterns that can help group prospects in terms of problem statements and value propositions. You will get the hero statement by this - group the ones with similar statements.

Create personas for everyone on the buyer committee: - users - influencers - key decision makers - budget holders - C-Suite Anyone and everyone that can move the deal forward or impact the deal to get signed and move forward. You want to build personas and campaigns for everyone that is involved in the deal directly or indirectly.

Lots of people confuse Ideal Client Profile (ICP) and Personas. Your ICP is how you define the companies you're going after (assuming B2B). Personas are the people within those companies. Think about who the relevant decision makers are for what you sell. Do you need to talk to the C-suite CEO, CRO, CTO, CISO, CFO, COO? Or is it better talking to a technical champion below the line first? Maybe that's a front line manager, an engineer, or a director. These days buying committees are becoming more common. You may need to convince several people at a business to buy your solution before you close a deal.

For B2B sales, consider first in which market segmentation, industry and nature you would like to compete it. Is it mass, premium vs niche; is it micro SME, mid SME, large SME, MNC or public listed; is there any specific industry you would like to tap into? Once done, consider who is the gatekeeper- their demographics, geographical location and common attributes (interest, likes and dislikes). Then, you may want to consider identifying their common pain points, aspirations and preferences. This helps in multiple ways- establishing better relevance, providing perceived feeling of empathy to their pain points, designing strategic questions and customizing your offers to them

Leveraging detailed buyer personas empowers sales development representatives (SDRs) with precise questions and tailored value propositions, enhancing personalized outreach. Unlike generic templates that at best cater to an industry, a well-crafted persona dives deep into specifics. It's not just about identifying "Sally from sales" or company size, but truly listening to current customers within each persona to grasp their core concerns. This unique approach recognizes that the factors attracting a prospect differ from those sealing the deal. By highlighting both initial and closing pain points, SDRs are better equipped for effective outreach, moving beyond industry stereotypes to genuine, impactful engagement.

By categorizing prospects according to their specific needs and characteristics, businesses can shift from a transactional approach to a more relationship-driven approach.

Segmentation helps you think like the person you're selling to. A CEO at a rapidly growing SaaS company thinks very differently from a CTO at a small manufacturer. Develop those personas and research what each one cares about. It should be somewhat different or you're not doing it right. Some overlap is okay but each persona should be a little unique.

Develop your Gold, Silver and Bronze customer persona- Gold being the most ideal, followed by Silver and Bronze being the least ideal. Traditionally this is also known as Hot, Warm and Cold. This is to help prioritization of task and resources. Another method you could use to segment your prospects is using Relationship Levels- from Weak, Average, Strong and Excellent: Excellent: Transparent open communication with the highest level of mutual trust- they see you as integrated partners Strong: Multi-level engagement in which you know some people in their team and vice versa. Conversations are likely to be trusted, but not quite until Excellent Average/Weak: They are looking at price vs value, need to work to build them up to Strong

Once you've segmented your personas you can craft messaging tailored to each. Understanding what each persona cares about is really important here. A CRO cares about revenue growth strategy whereas an IT manager is probably more risk averse and cares about system stability and uptime. Try to tie your messaging to the pains each persona might have and how your solution might help them achieve their specific goals.

Another way to do that is to look through your historical pattern. Speak to your top customers according to your designated customer persona and perform a casual interview with them. Reach out to them and say you're in the process of upgrading your service level and revamping your product- in return you could give them a gift or concession. Speak to your top 3-5 customers and ask them what they like about your product, why you over others and what they wish to be done better. You would be surprised on what you hear from them vs what you initially thought it would be.

Customizing your sales pitch to match the persona of your potential client is crucial for engagement and conversion. Start by researching your client's industry, company culture, and role within their organization. Tailor your message to address their specific challenges, goals, and values. Use language that resonates with them and offer solutions that align with their objectives. Personalization demonstrates that you understand their unique needs, building trust and increasing the likelihood of a successful sale.

People want to work with companies that they believe understand how their world works and the problems they face. Ultimately it’s a simple matter of showing people you have already worked with similar situations as that builds trust you will get the results. If you talk to someone in their language and already know what their world is like they are drastically more likely to open up and tell you the problems in their business. Having a persona profile will help you plan your call beforehand to increase the likelihood that you will get a conversation going.

There are some benefits of using buyer personas (at least in my experience) - One god knows who from the C-level will be the driver of change from status quo to status future. So I use several. Who will say "Yes, Anzhela, let's talk more about it". - Through the experience of using different approaches with buyers, persona salespeople evolve. - One day, you will master your pitch and make your buyer persona ideal.