Who is your Ideal Customer?

Tell me “What does your ideal Customer look like?”

I’m not asking about their physical appearance but what characteristics do you think your customers should have that would make them a perfect customer. I have asked Account Managers this question many times and I usually get many of the same answers:

* Buys/needs what I have to sell

* Wants to be a partner

* Pays on time

* Respects my knowledge

I can’t disagree that these are all very important but I think as Sales and Account Manager’s we must dig much deeper to really find our ideal customers.

Our Marketing efforts will or should have identified the “Ideal Customers” by industries, segments and products that are most likely to be profitable.

Operations should be in place to provide the needed support and have the inventory and logistics to handle your sales.

The Credit Department will have analyzed the credit risk’s involved and be knowledgable with terms and conditions within each industry.

Now it is up to us to go out and make the sell. Whether you are a seasoned salesperson or just starting your career, you must be able to identify the “customers” or “customer types” that will make you most successful.

You can Google “Who’s your Ideal Customer” and find many resources and processes to help in your search. One of the most popular and logical I’ve seen and used is to make a list of all your customers. Then arrange them in some order. You can use your own benchmarks but most common are:

* Revenue (Sales or Gross Margin)

* Longevity as a customer

* Partner-ability

* Willingness to be a reference

Then you compare each customer to the criteria selected to help identify your best or ideal customers.

This will give you a good idea of customers that are most likely to be the most successful accounts. But I think if you stop here you will be missing maybe the most important aspect of “your” Ideal Customer.

When making a list like above, many times it will miss the intangibles or things that you just can’t easily benchmark.

I hope we all agree that the Account Manager’s ability to build strong and lasting relationships with customer’s is essential to everyones success.

So when I ask the question “Who’s your Ideal Customer?” what I’m really wanting to find out is who’s that customer that makes you love what you do. Which customer or customers are you most likely to go the extra mile for and always looking for ways to over-deliver. Who’s the customer that you are eager to go in early to see and don’t mind staying late to take care of. These will probably be the customers you will also consider friends and not just customers.

Let’s go through the same process as above but with a different benchmark that only you can know:

Make a list of all your customers using the criteria in the paragraph above and arrange them in order of those you’re always eager to call on first and those that you always find a reason to avoid last.

Now compare this list to the first list. I think you will see many similarities. I’m sure you will find that many of your customers will be in the same order as above. Your ideal customers from an analytical approach will be much the same as you personal list.

Here is where I tend to differ from the many articles that you may read.

I think that as Sales and Account Managers our ideal customers will be the the customers that we can most closely relate to on some personal level. I know this is too much of a general statement and does not always hold true but with the exception of possibly revenue, the analytical benchmarks used above may have as much to do with relationships with the Company and Account Managers as anything else.

If you can identify the things that are most common in “your” best customers list, you will be much more likely to be successful as you grow your business. You will be adding customers with the same characteristics that you are most passionate about and most willing to give your all.

I have struggled for several weeks with how best to write this article. I know it may lack in order and flow but I had to attempt to get my thoughts out as best as possible. I think the reason I’ve struggled the past few weeks with this topic is that these are the topics that we as Sales Managers find most difficult to teach.

How do we teach our Salespeople the importance of loving what they do?

Can we show our Account Managers that being passionate in all they do and willing to give their “all” is really the secret to being successful in anything they pursue.

And insisting that they are always trying to exceed their customer expectations.

Sales processes can easily be taught, best practices and sales tips learned but it’s the intangibles that helps us find our “Ideal Customer and Customers”.

Thank you for taking time to read this post. If you would like, please leave a comment below or you can email me at feedback@wewaonthenet.com.

You can also follow me on Twitter at www.twitter.com/WE_Ward.

Now let’s get out there and over-deliver!