The Most Powerful Question: Who Are Your Customers?

Who are your customers? is a critical question for every business. I remember starting my first day with an environmental services company as their State Manager. A leadership and business development role that was outside my previous water focused expertise. This was an exciting posting, and I was looking forward to building on the existing customer base. Enthusiastically, I sat down with the small team and asked the question: “Who are our customers?”

I was met with blank stares. I was falteringly told that they had once met with two or three companies, at which point they stuttered back into silence. Not the greatest of starts.

I recognized that there were two ways to respond. First, I could hang my head in despair, throw my hands in the air and admit defeat. Or I could see this as an excellent opportunity to define what our ideal customers looked like. I could identify the low hanging fruit and take action. Of course, I chose action.

You may have the best product in the world and not be able to sell it. You need a willing buyer. The start-up scene is littered with the husks of companies that developed great products that nobody wanted. Effectively it boils down to one simple fact.

If there is no Customer there is no Product or Service.

A company is nothing without customers who use its services or products. Each company has an ideal customer. The characteristics of this customer has to be defined. Each characteristic must be rated in terms of importance to your business and the direction of your future business development growth.

Who is Your Ideal Customer?

First, picture what an ideal customer looks like. Who would you love to do business with? Give this some serious thought. Next, dive deep into the characteristics that make up the companies that you aspire to do business with. Ask yourself and the team the following questions to help define your perfect customer:

• Which industry does the company operate within?
• What size staff and annual turnover do they have?
• What work do they focus on?
• Are there specific products or services they need to be successful?
• What sort of people work there?
• Where are they located?
• How much will they spend on your product or service?
• Who are the decision makers around implementing your products or services?
• Who controls their budgets?

This is just the start. There will be many more questions that are unique to your industry and offering. For example if you develop software solutions, you may need to know what operating system the customers use. In the environmental space, you may need to be aware of specific environmental legislation that relates to particular companies.

Forming a Customer Matrix

From your final list of questions, determine the top five to ten that are most important to your business offering. These will form the core attributes of your target customers, allowing potential customers to be easily identified and benchmarked. For easy comparison embed these into the customer matrix shown in the table below.

Filling in the matrix with existing customers gives you a good picture of who should be retained, and who shouldn’t. It allows you to make a quick assessment of target companies to see whether they are a good fit for your business and whether time and resources should be allocated to their pursuit. 

Use this matrix for new target customers, and for existing customers who both need to be serviced properly to be retained.

Next Stage

Have a go at creating your own customer matrix. Think about what customer attributes are important to your business.

As always I’m keen to hear your thoughts on which customer characteristics are important to you. Drop a comment below or get in touch through the usual channels.