Ok, so now you have a clear idea of what your business sells, be they products and/or services. Step 2 in getting a business plan written is this: Why would people buy your product and why would they NOT buy your product? You need to know why your customers buy your product, all the various reasons because in knowing why they buy what you sell, you know more about how to sell more of it to your existing customers. You have a foundation for marketing to people who already consume what you sell because you market to the reasons that already exist. You take those reasons and build on them to find ways of selling more to them. Also spend time defining why people would not buy from you. This helps you address reasons that can be overcome, and will facilitate the designing of marketing campaigns that sell to those who want to buy and address reasons other have not yet chosen to buy from you.
An example: You are a hardware store and people buy from you because they want products that keep their house maintained, safe, organized, whatever. From that you then can develop selling techniques at the cash register so your employees look at what category of product the customer has brought to the register and they can suggest additional items in that same category that the person might also be interested in or that are in a similar vein as to what the person is buying or is a better solution to what the person is trying to accomplish. Hardware stores have DYI customers and they have professionals. You could develop different selling strategies that appeal to each of them or both of them depending. The why a customer buys from you should be the foundation for your marketing campaign. You use all the reasons they already buy from you and market to those reasons. Offer deals that combine one product with another that pair well when combined and speak to why your customer buys.
You also want to spend time thinking about why people would not buy from you. It’s one thing if they simply do not need your product/service, but you will uncover other reasons that people don’t buy that can be overcome with marketing or better descriptions of your products/services. There could be a large population of potential customers out there that do not buy from you for reasons you can overcome. Offering free delivery to people who think you are too far away. Offering more personal/personalized service to customers who buy online. Offering zoom meetings to customers who do not want to have to make a trip to your office or vice versa. You won’t know how to overcome the reservations until you know what they are, but it could open up a whole new population of potential customers to you.
Maybe you are an accountant like me and people do not buy because they are afraid of the uncertain nature of the cost. Then take away that fear and offer fixed rate, flat fee services. We offer a whole host of services for fixed monthly fees. Everything from recurring bookkeeping to support contracts where they can just ask questions about how to use Quickbooks, or other accounting questions. We offer a flat monthly fee support contract so you have someone you can ask your questions and know they will respond. Like a subscription. From $150/month for basic support to a customized, fixed fee comprehensive advisory engagement, you know what you are getting and you can decide to purchase or not. We price for value and then provide the best customer service we can so the client feels the value. No fear, no surprises.
Maybe people are simply unaware of everything you offer. They don’t buy something from you because they do not realize you offer it. We lost all kinds of clients years ago because they thought I was only a Tax Accountant and did not realize I also offered bookkeeping. I thought it was pretty obvious, but obviously not, because we had clients go elsewhere for bookkeeping and still came to me for tax returns.
Find the reasons why and the reasons why not and change your marketing strategy to address both of those to increase your population of possible customers. Knowing the why and why not really helps target your marketing message and it helps target your audience so your marketing dollars are reaching the right people and are not being wasted on campaigns that are falling on deaf ears.
Be familiar with what you sell and why and why not people will buy from you and suddenly, how to market and who to market to become more obvious and your marketing message is more concise, communicates what it needs to to reach your most likely customer.
