How can entrepreneurs find more profitable customers?

This is the third article of the business mastery series, if you’ve missed out on any, you can catch up by clicking on any of the links below.

BUSINESS MASTERY: how should entrepreneurs be spending their time?

Business Mastery: How Should Entrepreneurs Be Profitably Marketing Their Business?

In our previous discussion on how should entrepreneurs be profitably marketing their business, 3 elements of holistic marketing were highlighted;

• Finding profitable customers
• Keeping profitable customers
• Growing customers profitably

In this unusual article, I will be continuing our discussion from where we left off on the first element of holistic marketing –finding profitable customers.

The last time, I shared 3 fundamental marketing processes you need to undertake in finding profitable customers; market research, market segmentation and target marketing. They are fundamental because they provide the technical knowhow of finding profitable customers without which all your practical attempts to attract profitable customers for your business will be futile.  In other words, they provide the technical information you need to take strategic actions.

Today, I will be sharing some strategic ways of finding profitable customers that you can practically put to use now and continually reap the rewards.  Mind you, these strategic tips must be applied in line with the technical information obtained from undertaking the 3 fundamental marketing processes of market research, market segmentation and target marketing.

Let’s begin!

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This is the second article of a new series, I have tagged it “Business Mastery Series”. Throughout this series, I will be

How should you market your business?

addressing some key issues that are pertinent to your success in business as an entrepreneur.

If you missed out on the first article, you can read it here;

BUSINESS MASTERY: how should entrepreneurs be spending their time?

Marketing is a core business function; to a large extent the success of your business is dependent on it. But from personal observations, not many entrepreneurs go about their marketing as they ought to. If at all they do, they don’t approach it holistically and so end up leaving so many stones unturned.

They tend to focus more on the selling part of marketing and overlook the other vital parts that naturally make selling unnecessary. The truth is this, if you approach marketing holistically, you will find out that you don’t need to ‘sell’; your products/services will naturally sell themselves.

There is an unusual way to marketing –the holistic way.

To attain the significant level of success you desire in your business, marketing must be seen as one whole concept involving several key activities that must be carried out by everyone in your business beginning with you the entrepreneur. In other words, when it comes to marketing, no one is to be exempted!

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Change is the only constant thing in life. Some changes are favourable, some aren’t. To succeed, whether in life or in business, you must be willing to accept change regardless of how it comes. This unusual article is about a particular kind of change in business, a very rare one indeed, disruptive market changes.

Disruptive market changes are ground breaking inventions or innovations that utterly redefine the nature [characteristics] and structure [organization] of a particular industry, niche, business or market.

They are also known as disruptive innovations or disruptive technology and here’s a definition from Wikipedia;

“A disruptive technology or disruptive innovation is an innovation that disrupts an existing market. The term is used in business and technology literature to describe innovations that improve a product or service in ways that the market does not expect, typically by lowering price or designing for a different set of consumers.”

They are disruptive because of their enormous impact on the market; they create new trends in the marketplace. Examples are; social media, the internet, telecommunication, smart phones, iPod, etc.

Don’t be deceived, the odds of being in business are very high. Business whether you like it or not will go bad at some point or the other during your entrepreneurial journey. This is just the mere reality of life, there are no permanent conditions. The good and the bad times all add up to make the journey worthwhile. So brace yourself up when the bad times rear up their ugly heads.

For the record, especially if you are new to naijapreneur, I will like to mention the businesses I am involved in concurrently; a cybercafé business [Lighthouse], an I.T. consulting business [Newchild], a people, business and life development company [MADphilips] and a Network Marketing business [Avenues To Wealth].

Why the list you might want to ask?

Because one of these businesses is currently going through a disruptive market change and I want you to pay close attention to the lessons I am going to share in this unusual article.

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Perhaps my greatest discovery in my journey as an entrepreneur was from Peter Drucker’s statement about marketing. Here it is;

How are you attracting, keeping and growing profitable customers?

 “The purpose of marketing is to make selling superfluous”.

Now, not many people understand what the last word in that sentence mean, so I am going to explain. Superfluous means unnecessary, period. Meaning marketing is supposed to make selling unnecessary.

Excuse me, isn’t this contrary to popular believe? In fact, a lot of people now regard marketing and selling to be one and the same thing. Here’s the brutal truth, no such thing exists.

“Marketing is what lays the foundation for effective selling”.

This is the 5th article of the business growth 101 series. If you haven’t been following, here are the previous articles of the series;

BG 101: What to do when business is slow

BG 101: How to diagnose the problem of low sales

BG 101: How Entrepreneurs Are Unknowingly

BG 101: How To Increase The Market Share Of Your Business

How have you been selling?

Back in the industrial age, manpower was the domineering force behind the success of every business. The more labourers you had as a company working for you, the more products you could eventually produce. There existed a direct relationship between the number of employees with the eventual turnover of good and services. More sales force equals to more revenue.

News Flash!

We are no longer in the industrial age, so manpower has become obsolete. We live in an era of the knowledge worker where brain power is the competitive edge. The size of your company’s workforce doesn’t account for its success, but rather, the quality of their brain. Size no longer counts, but insight.

In this new era, you find one man conveniently selling to thousands without a big workforce. The secret? Marketing.

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In business, profit goes to the company with a sizable chunk of the market. In most cases, this is usually the companies

How are you increasing the market share of your business?

in the top 3 position; first, second and third. This position is not determined by a regulatory body, but by their market size – the number of customers these business serve on a consistent basis. Market share is a numbers game. You are only as profitable as the number of client/customers patronizing your business.

I have often said this, if your business is not a force to reckon with in the particular industry or niche you belong, you are as good as dead. When your industry or niche is being mentioned, which companies come up as reference points? Is your company among them? Is your company a threat to your industry or niche? If your answer to this question is NO, then there’s much work to be done. Let’s get down to business!

This is the 4th article of the business growth 101 series. If you haven’t been following, here are the previous articles of the series;

BG 101: What to do when business is slow

BG 101: How to diagnose the problem of low sales

BG 101: How Entrepreneurs Are Unknowingly Killing Their Businesses!

What is a market share?

In very simple terms, market share is the number of loyal customers your business or company has been able to retain over a long period of time.

The key word in this definition is LOYAL.

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Last week I began a series on business growth where I discussed about what to do when business is slow. In that article,

How do you tackle the problem of low sales in business?

I mentioned that the first strategic action to take when business is slow is to diagnose the cause of the problem. If you are just joining us in this series, click here to subscribe, also, you need to read the first article to have a good grasp of what I will be sharing in this unusual article.

Business Growth series [Part one]

In this second installment of the series, I will be going in-depth to look at the necessary steps to take while diagnosing the problem of low sales in your business.

Enjoy!

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