Wednesday, May 14, 2008

What is your target market?

We have an aide memoire at NRG events to help people focus on the key messages that will help others to advocate them in the right situations.

The first point after Name & Company Name is "Our typical client is". If you have a specific niche this is easy. Many businesses have more than one type of client and find this difficult. They will often say something like:

"We do not have a typical client. We deal with individuals, small, medium, & large companies. Everyone or Anyone can use our service." This tells the audience absolutely nothing and they switch off.

The most effective thing is to pick the client type most relevant to the people you are with. If you are with other owners of other service businesses think about who their clients are likely to be. Talk about your typical clients in that market.

If I am with business people who have small businesses as their clients I have a specific message. NRG Business Networking Group membership is the message I want them to advocate. I say my typical client is the owner manager of a business to business professional services firm with at least a couple of employees and where that owner is the person responsible for winning new business.

In a different group I might say something different. If the clients of the people I am with are medium sized professional firms I will focus on the service we provide for regional law firms and name an example. In another group my focus will be on entrepreneurs who have been successful in growing to £1 million in revenues and who now want to take their business to the next stage.

Remember the people you are networking with are your route to market and not your market. Once you have defined your target market you can then talk about the concerns, issues & problems they have. The things that you fix!

Good Networking!
Dave Clarke
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