Target Your Audience with Precision to Continue to Grow

As I began Smooth Sale, my thought was “every business needs to know about sales,” but a marketing specialist changed my perspective. She advised that I instead narrow my focus to grow the business. Experience has me realize her wisdom.

Entrepreneurship is a lifelong journey of embracing the unknown to learn and grow.

Initial stops and restarts in business and much education has me in agreement that we need to recognize our precise audience. On the surface, yes most entrepreneurs and businesspeople can use sales training. However, I am not knowledgeable about every business or the needs of every title. The piece I was missing in the early stages is that it is essential to be very familiar upfront with the needs, wants and desires of clients just as if it were a sale by itself, not just the service to be provided.

Similar to A/B testing as marketing people suggest, testing your theory about your best audience provides the insights we each need. Today the knowledge of who is our prime audience is much easier to grasp with the use of Google Analytics and similar apps. The insights make it relatively easy to communicate with precision to the needs, wants and desires of the unique group. Speaking to needs wants and desires drives sales.

Experimentation and tweaking revealed my clientele. As the first interested audience proved to be the right one, it became easier to develop products and services over time. It was at this point that I created the Smooth Sale blog to be of further assistance. A continued stream of notes validate the original words of wisdom.

It’s a New Year, and sometimes new strategy is needed. If obtaining interest in you and your work has been challenging, give thought to who you are targeting plus your communication style. Generally speaking, much is dependent upon the age group you are targeting. But obviously, there are always exceptions. One main difference is that more mature individuals tend to work in-person and younger folks are more visible online.

Communication styles range from formal and lengthy to the brief text messaging. Then there is the question of approaching the Fortune 100 and 500 corporations for employment or providing services versus the startups. Should you be seeking new job interviews or further business growth, these questions will help target the better opportunities:

Which prospect will be most interested in you and your work; answer the “why”?

Where are your commonalities with those most interested?

How may you apply your talent to what your intended audience is seeking?
Two elements are always to recognize how you may be of service, and how your unique touch has you standing out from the crowded field.

Remember!

Create a qualified list of people and companies to contact or connect.

Verify via research that you have an interest in the other party and can provide value.

Find a major point of commonality to begin the conversation.

Upon making the initial introduction state what caught your interest to connect.

Ask what the other person’s interest is to accept your invitation.

Inquire about goals, problems, and solutions to gain understanding.

Listen carefully to anything that doesn’t sound quite right.

Should something stated be of concern, ask for more information.

Say no to anything that does not meet your standards.

Celebrate success!

Following these guidelines will lead you to the Smooth Sale!