Understanding Customers for Strategic Business Growth

As a leader in a dynamic industry, I've often observed a recurring challenge among our clients: a limited understanding of their potential customers, typically restricted to basic targeting parameters. In the past, we also followed this approach, focusing on factors like industry, geography, company size, and key positions within the target companies. These are the typical parameters one might use for advertising settings.

However, for effective social selling and building a robust business network that can be converted into clients, it’s crucial to go beyond these basic targeting parameters. We need to deeply understand our ideal customer profile, which often involves a group of people within the company who participate in decision-making. By understanding these individuals' needs, we can significantly enhance our engagement strategies.

Understanding the individual means recognizing the needs they fulfill by purchasing our service. Let's take our own experience as an example. It’s vital to grasp the motivations behind buying our service and the internal criteria that are important to them when making decisions. Knowing this information allows us to tailor our marketing and sales processes more effectively. It’s not just about targeting but about meaningful communication at every touchpoint, from marketing materials and posts to the entire sales process and lead generation.

Furthermore, this information is invaluable in account management. Working on a project with a client, we can use our understanding of their needs and the internal benefits they seek to provide a more effective service.?

This knowledge also allows us to refine our offerings continually. We can improve existing products or create new services and solutions based on the identified needs of our clients. It’s a virtuous cycle: the more we know, the better service we provide, leading to happier clients and better outcomes for both parties. This is the essence of a win-win strategy.

Currently, we are in the midst of deepening this understanding. The question arises: how do we gather this crucial information about our clients' needs, motives, and internal benefits? The simplest and most effective method is through customer development, which can be broken down into several stages.

The first and most straightforward step is to directly ask our existing clients. If a company already has an established customer base, the best approach is to engage with those clients who have been with the company for a while. By asking them questions like, "Why did you choose our company?" and "Why have you been working with us for a year, two years, or however long?" we can gather insightful responses. Listening to our clients can be incredibly revealing. Often, the answers may surprise us.

For instance, you might believe that your competitive pricing is the main draw for your service, but clients might value the excellent relationship they have with their account manager more. You might think your swift logistics is a key advantage, but clients could appreciate the overall service quality more. Knowing these true customer values helps us articulate our key strengths based on actual feedback rather than assumptions.

By continuously engaging with our clients and understanding their true motivations and needs, we can refine our offerings, improve our services, and ultimately ensure greater satisfaction and success for both our clients and our business. This approach not only solidifies our relationship with current clients but also enhances our ability to attract and retain new ones, driving sustainable growth.

To summarize, the deeper our understanding of our clients, the more effective and successful our business strategies will be. This holistic approach, centered on genuine client insights, positions us to offer superior value and build lasting relationships, paving the way for continued success and growth.

In the next edition, I will cover the other stages of customer development. This is a topic that deserves its own dedicated discussion, so stay tuned for more insights.

For my followers and subscribers I offer complimentary consultation on using LinkedIn for social selling. Feel free to book a convenient time slot with a note "LI consultation".

Dmytro Suslov,

Your Social Selling Partner

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