July 3, 2023
Finding customers is one of the most important elements of growing a company, but surprisingly most businesses still don't get this right.
The reason being is that it isn't about the number of customers (which still matters), but it's more so to do with the quality of the customers that come through the door. Quality customers lead to longer relationships.
In this article, we'll outline how to find the right customers to ensure that they remain with you for the long haul.
Step 1: Define your Ideal Customer Profile
It sounds obvious, but the first step into getting your next set of ideal customers is to define what they look like.
You want to break this up into two componenets:
- End users
- Decision Makers
Your end users are the people who will use your product and the decision makers are the people who enable your end users to use your product. Decision makers are the people who purchase.
Break down your ICP by Job title, industry and location for both end-users and decision makers.
Step 2: Figure out where they spend time
You can't bring on a customer if you don't know how to approach them.
Find local meet ups if possible, use reddit, LinkedIn and other mediums to connect with potential buyers. This is optional, as you can just go directly to cold calling and cold emailing. If you decide to go for just cold approaches, skip to step 4.
After you find out where they spend time beyond work, you need to position yourself so you can be around them.
Step 3: Approach
When you're around potential buyers in person or online, don't approach with the intent to sell. Approach with the intent to build a long-term relationship.
People do business with people, not entities.
When approaching a prospect, ensure that you're being human and not robotic. People can smell when they're being sold to.
During the course of conversation, try to learn more about their work and their problems and where they prioritise solving that problem. From there, try to suggest solutions without directly selling to them.
Step 4: Get details
If you met your prospects in person, then at the end of the conversation, ask for their number or LinkedIn.
If you need to approach cold, you need their contact information.
Use a product like Prospect AI to get accurate details of your potential buyers.
Step 5: Messaging
The end goal is to book a discovery call because that's where you'll actually be able to dive deeper into their problems.
Keep your messaging short, to the point and try to verify if they have the problem you're solving for. We'll be adding future blogs on how to cold email.