My last blogs emphasized that in the changing dynamics of sales, a salesperson to be successful is required to continuously develop his skill sets. To master the “Art of Selling”, you should know all the essentials of selling. We have already elaborated on Knowing Yourself, knowing your Company and the Product.
“Knowing your Market” is a key essential of selling. Your market includes your customers, your suppliers, and your competitors. These are pivotal characters that define the success of your business. To know your customer’s likes and dislikes, their spending power, what they enjoy and what they need, will give you a clear picture of what your customer wants from you. This will enable you to translate your product into something that will sell to your target market.
Usually, a market analysis includes a view of the industry you are in. You must be aware of the industry trends, industry growth, recent developments and common keys to success. You should be doing a good web search for available information that might come from market studies, trade associations, industry experts, blogs, major competitors and local competitors and of course, the actual ground-work survey.
Knowing your market includes:
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“Total Addressable Market” or “Total Available Market” (TAM): It is the entire potential market available. It’s large and usually a useless number.
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“Serviceable Available Market” (SAM): It is a more useful number that can be reached and serviced.
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“Share of Market” (SOM): You must target a definite percent of market share you intend to capture of the total serviceable available market.
In today’s scenario, having a well-defined target market is a ‘MUST’. You cannot service the entire available market. Target marketing allows you to focus on a specific market that is more likely to buy from you than the other markets. Here is how you may define your target market-
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Look at your current customer base: Who are your current customers and why do they buy from you. These factors could be used to influence new customers as well.
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Check out your competition: Who are your customers targeting? Who are their current customers? You may not necessarily target the same set of customers but can find out who are they overlooking.
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Analyze your Product/Service: List down a FAB (Feature, Advantage, Benefit) Chart of your product/service. Once you have your benefits listed, make a list of people who have a need that your benefit fulfills.
You should also be in a position to do a proper ‘Market Segmentation’ and relate your product/service to different market segments. Market segmentation can be done by:
- Dividing a population by age and gender (selling clothing, shoes, etc.).
- Dividing a population by married or single (selling real estate, insurance, etc.).
- Dividing a population by income also sometimes called ‘Economic Segmentation’ (restaurants, niche products, luxury goods, travel agencies, etc.).
- Geographical Segmentation where a market is cut into various zones, regions, cities or neighborhoods (selling personal care, clothing, etc.).
- Market segmentation can also be done by dividing customers by their:
Personality
Attitudes
Values
Interests/hobbies
Lifestyles
Behaviour
Determine how your product or service will fit into your target’s lifestyle. How and when will your target use the product? What features are most appealing to your target?
Evaluate your decision.
Once you’ve closed in on a target market, be sure that these questions are addressed first:
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Are there enough people who fit my criteria and builds up my pipeline?
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Will my target really benefit from my product/service?
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Will the customer see the need for my product?
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Do I understand what drives my customers to make the buying decision?
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Is my product/service affordable?
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Can I reach out to all my target customers?
Remember, your market context is not static. It keeps on changing and is very dynamic in nature. Continuous understanding of your market requires continuous scanning of the market. So, you are required to update your understanding of the market on a regular basis. When you begin to unfold everything that matters in your market, you will begin to see past your competition and will give you a greater understanding of the opportunities that exist.
