Sell Me This Cup  

Many clients ask me why their sales are not meeting expectations. They have a good-looking website, experienced sales people, decent lead system, and even a Business or Sales Development Rep (BDR or SDR). The usual culprit is in the way they have segmented their market. 

There is a Fear of Missing Out (FOMO) issue that pervades most companies, and they try to be attractive to as many buyers as possible. And when I say attractive, I am not referring to their product or service alone – I am including the whole package: product, price, packaging, brand, support and so on.   

Let’s take an example: 

Let’s say you are selling coffee cups. Now a coffee cup can be used for a huge range of things such as watering plants, storing pencils, drinking tea, and so on. And who could use such a coffee cup – well, almost anyone, or anything with an opposable thumb. In such a case, how on earth do you go to market.  

 Let’s take that very same coffee cup:  

We find that a segment of the market really likes their coffee made from specialty, fresh-ground Colombian coffee beans. They are in the top quartile of income earners in their country. They live in large urban cores and have 0.7 children. They work in the creative industry,  drive a Model Y (but are thinking of swapping it for an Ionic) and like adventure vacations. 

So if we were to focus on that narrow market, what might you print on that cup, what features would you focus on, where would you promote it, how would you price it, how would you deliver it. By serving that market specifically, your offer would stand out, your cost of acquisition would be lower, and you could charge more for it. 

The same is true for absolutely everything that you are selling. The tighter you focus, the better the return.

And there is a powerful corollary to this: 

By focusing on a tight segment, you could become the segment leader which gives you pricing power and limited competition.  

But wait, there’s more: 

The cup buyer above is not a local market – it’s global and you now have the ability to mine that vein of gold globally. And in those expanded geographies – who are you competing with – the companies selling coffee cups to anyone and everyone and anything with an opposable thumb.  As I have said many times, the global specialist will always beat the local generalist. 

As we head into the end of the year, is it time to examine your sales and market strategy? I can help you narrow your focus and increase sales. 

See you next time,

Andrew