Step 1: Design Your Customer

The first of my Four Simple Steps to Lasting Business Success is: Design Your Customer.

In standard marketing parlance this is referred to as targeting your market.

Offering a specific solution to a group of people who share a common need is a fundamental business principle. So why is it resisted by so many entrepreneurs? Because they feel it limits their potential marketplace. “If I only target this small group of people,” their logic goes “I’ll be passing up a huge number of others.” Sounds right. Dead wrong.

First off, in a marketplace as huge as the United States, you only need a small fraction of a percentage point of the total population in your customer list to make a fortune.

Secondly, you don’t have the marketing budget to successfully plant your message in the minds of millions of people (unless you’re Coke or Xerox or Toyota or…).

Finally, and most importantly, this small group of people who share a need that you can fill, a problem that you can solve, want to hear from you about your solution and are highly motivated to buy - now!

This is why Designing Your Customer has to be step one in your Customer Factory. Before you can even consider what your marketing message should say or how you should say it, you must first determine to whom you will be speaking - your target audience.

Defining Your Target Audience

And how do you define your target audience? How do you design your customer?

If you are already in business and have been for a year or more, the answer is simple: take a look at your current customer list and pull out the 20% of your clients who bring in 80% of your revenue. Where are they located? What do they buy form you? Why do they buy from you? How do they buy from you? What industries do they represent? What characteristics do they share in terms of size, demographics, economics, etc.

By going through the exercise of answering these questions you will quickly see some patterns emerge. The bottom line is that the customers you profit from the most are the ones that you can serve the best. And your examination of your top customers will tell you what you’re doing so well for them.

After creating a prototype of your Dream Customer, visit a web site like InfoUSA.com and run a search to see how many companies or consumers match that profile within a five-mile radius of your location. You’ll be surprised by the answer.

And, if you market to the whole country via direct mail, direct response and/or the Internet, you’ll be flat-out amazed how many prospects you can connect with - even in that smaller group who have an immediate itch that your offering scratches.

Conclusion

There’s no point in even turning the lights on at your Customer Factory until you’re clear about what kind of customers you’re looking to produce. Designing your customer first will make the next three steps a great deal more straightforward.