When it comes to sales questions are amazing wonderful tools.  Sadly when it comes to all the practicing, pre-call planning, and preparation that sales professionals do it seems that questions fall by the wayside.  Which is too bad because questions make for great conversations and help the participants of the sales call find winning solutions.

Great questions provoke thought.  They make the listener stop and think.  Great questions elicit honest and at times emotional responses.  Great questions help you, the salesperson, reach a deeper understanding of your client.  In return you will gain a respect most salespeople could only dream of through your desire to learn more.

Did you or did you not order the ‘code red?!?’ – Lieutenant Kaffee from A Few Good Men

What Do You Want To Know?

Even a street vendor knows to ask great questions.

First reason why most salespeople do not ask insightful questions is because they do no know what it is that they want to know.  In not knowing they ask fluff questions or the like to “move the conversation along” without giving a thought to their customer.  This is akin to being forced to watch a torturous PowerPoint presentation (as if there is any other kind.)  Their customers’ thoughts, feelings, and interests are secondary to the sales presentation.

It is easy to recognize such poor questions because they sound awkward, mistimed, and forced.

In order to begin to have great questions you have to hypothesize about your customer.  Yes, you are making assumptions but you not going to act on them.  Instead you are going to formulate questions that test your assumptions and either confirm or refute your hypothesis.

You have to know what it is that you wish to understand about your customer.  Then ask it – directly to your customer.  It is always amazing how many salespeople ask questions that are vague and/or require the customer to answer a series of them.   The only result is to make the salesperson look foolish and frustrate the customer.

Successful stellar salespeople do all the necessary preparation to identify what it is they specifically want to know.  They write questions that are clear and direct that will elicit an answer.  They use the answers they receive to provide valuable clear information that will help their customer buy.

All nonsense questions are unanswerable. – C. S. Lewis

5 Steps To Create Great Questions

• Write down what you want to know. During your pre-call planning, as you sift through all your information, write down what you want to know about your customers actions, buying habits, business needs, and desires.
• Come up with a hypothesis to your customer’s actions.
• Write open-ended questions (those that start with Who, What, Where, Why, When, and How) that will give you answers to what you want to know and test your hypothesis.
• Practice asking your questions out loud, if they sound awkward to you and others then you need to revise them.
• Keep a record of the questions you ask that elicit deep responses. Use this record to build better questions and follow-up questions.

Successful people ask better questions, and as result, they get better answers. – Tony Robbins

Never Fear The Answers

Another reason why most salespeople do not ask great questions (or even ask them at all) is that they fear the answer.  That fear goes beyond hearing “No” and enters the realm of losing control of the sales call.  Fear that they will not be able to respond to whatever answer the customer comes back with.  Fear that they will not be of value at all.

That is true test of sales!  Great salespeople never fear the answers.  The love them, embrace them, and recognize that the answers – while possibly taking a sales call to the edge – give the salesperson the information necessary to help the customer.   The answers help turn the sales call into a great conversation and build a foundation of trust in the business relationship.

Never fear the answers because in them you will find valuable feedback that will make your products/services better.  You will learn how your competition is positioning against you.  You will learn novel uses of your products.  You will learn the truth about your customers.

What are some the best questions you have heard or used?

I ran into an old colleague in the supermarket yesterday. (No, no one got hurt.)  We were discussing the current business climate and how our respective businesses are going.  His is in a breakout stage right now, which means he feels a bit overworked but happy.  He is working for a medical device company that does not make a unique product but has improved on current technology.  Which got us into the conversation about what makes a successful start-up company and how do entrepreneurs discover new ideas.

The Secret Recipe

We are all bombarded through media about those who discover a break-through product or a completely new way of doing business.  The pressure on most entrepreneurs, or would be ones, is to discover a fantastic new way to do business.  Yet, there is tons of money to be made by improving existing products, services, and methods of doing businesses.  In fact, if you review most of the break-through products of the last decade and they are improvements on products/services that were already out there.  iPod: improvement on portable CD player and the Walkman.  Notebook computers: improvement on the laptop.  Facebook: improvement on MySpace.

These improvements represent a new direction on existing products/services that were not meeting a need by the market.  That is what it all comes down to in the end… meeting an unmet need.

So, if you are looking to start a new company or create a new product it has to meet the following test:

• Will it meet an unmet need? This is the test that must be passed in order to have any success.  It would do you no good to launch a buggy-whip business where there is not a need for them.  You must do your research to make sure that there are needs that are not being met.  If your product meets and exceeds those needs then you are well on your way to launching a successful business.

If it is so easy then why do most companies fail?  Well, the answer to that question is a hydra of responses.  It could be poor quality of the product, bad business plan, unsuccessful value propositions, et cetera.  Regardless, most of the time it is because the unmet need has been overstated and not vetted.  Think of Crystal Pepsi (I think I am the only person in the world that drank it) and New Coke.  Both of those products were failures because the need was overstated in the research.  There simply was not a need for them.

If you have a great idea, don’t keep it to yourself.  Well, keep the secret recipe and all to yourself, but not the idea.  You need to test if there really is an unmet need that your business idea will fulfill.  That means that you need to seek out beyond your social circle to receive feedback.

This is the toughest part, because the feedback can be brutal.  Yet, it is important as it helps you gauge how much desire there is out there for the services you wish to offer.  It also helps you not be myopic in your vision.

Coming back to my conversation with my friend.  We were both shopping for groceries for different reasons.  It was time to stock up the fridge and cupboards for him.  For me, I needed a few ingredients to complete a recipe I was trying on items I already had.  Another trip, that when you add time and gas, was becoming costly.  If only there was a website where I can plug-in the basic ingredients and it could spit out a recipe.  Hey! That’s an idea!

How would you test if your business idea is ready?

About the author:

Erroin A. Martin is a Business Advocate with the Von Gehr Consulting Group, LLC, a business coaching and consultancy provider for business owners, executives, and entrepreneurs. He has fifteen years experience working within the pharmaceutical, manufacturing, natural resources, medical devices, software, technology, business services, and agriculture industries in various levels of leadership across six continents. He has led diverse teams in sales, marketing, planning, and in the Army.  He currently coaches business leaders and physicians in the tools needed to plan for their success. Learn more about the Von Gehr Consulting Group, LLC at www.vongehrconsulting.com or call +1 203 433 8079.  You can follow him on Twitter at @Erroin

The Von Gehr Consulting Group, LLC, was founded by Erroin A. Martin to provide business coaching, business consulting, and other services to companies both large and small.  The primary goal is to have his clients be passionate about their business and reach the unachievable.

Rocky Mountain Roots Acupuncture & Herbal Medicine of Denver, Colorado, just had an amazing Grand Opening.  You can read about it here.

This is a congratulations video for them.

About the author:

Erroin A. Martin is a Business Advocate with the Von Gehr Consulting Group, LLC, a business coaching and consultancy provider for business owners, executives, and entrepreneurs. He has fifteen years experience working within the pharmaceutical, manufacturing, natural resources, medical devices, software, technology, business services, and agriculture industries in various levels of leadership across six continents. He has led diverse teams in sales, marketing, planning, and in the Army.  He currently coaches business leaders and physicians in the tools needed to plan for their success. Learn more about the Von Gehr Consulting Group, LLC at www.vongehrconsulting.com or call +1 203 433 8079.  You can follow him on Twitter at @Erroin

The Von Gehr Consulting Group, LLC, was founded by Erroin A. Martin to provide business coaching, business consulting, and other services to companies both large and small.  The primary goal is to have his clients be passionate about their business and reach the unachievable.

A business to survive has to have results. Typically these results are measured by the ultimate measurement: cash. The difficulty for any business in understanding this measurement is if it is a direct relation to activity or something other. Most businesses will have the belief that cash is generated solely by activity. Therefore many sales plans, business plans, and marketing plans are created around activity and not around value.

“People love chopping wood. In this activity one immediately sees results.” – Albert Einstein

Activity Is Up, But What About Profits?

At first glance any businessperson worth their salt would deride the above paragraph as being nonsense. To generate cash you have to have activity. That activity can be in the form of a sale, signature on a contract, or traffic to a particular website. The businessperson who thinks this is correct. The closing of the sale, the signing of a contract, and the decision to visit a website are all activities. The problem for the businessperson is really distinguishing if these activities are of value to the customer. Typically this is not the case when it comes to many businesses.

Let’s take, for example, the founder of Mint.com. This individual competes against Microsoft Money and Intuit’s Quicken. Both of those software platforms are major movers in the marketplace of personal finance. So what makes a web-based application like Mint.com different? Well for one, mint.com is focused around giving you “the user” quick information about your financial status. It is also designed to give you the information you need to make sound decisions for your financial future.  It is as a program providing value.  The competition to Mint.com are more focused around how long you spend on particular windows or other GUIs in their programs. The competitors to Mint.com are focused on activity and not real value to you to the consumer.

The good news is at least it’s activity driven.  The bad news is there is no value to anyone.

Still not convinced there is a difference? Well, let’s take a look at social media. In another blog post by Amber Naslund, she uses a quote from Albert Einstein. This quote states, “People love chopping wood. In this activity one immediately sees results.” The same is true when a business embraces social media. The belief of the business is that social media is activity driven platform. They tweet and get followers.  They build a fan page and get fans.  The more active you are the greater results your are going to get. This is a fallacy. Why? Well what is one of the chief complaints when it comes to social media? That people are blabbing on about their nonsensical lives. That right there is activity with no value to the consumer of the information. So if you are a business and you are going to spout out nonsensical information about your business, you are just as guilty as those individuals who comment about what their cats are doing. The good news is at least it’s activity driven.  The bad news is there is no value to anyone.

So how can you as a businessperson make sure that you do not get caught and in the activity trap?

First, make sure that any metrics being measured against the plan are value driven. This is easier said than done. Any plan, whether it is for business, sales, or marketing has to have metrics to measure its progress. Yet, a value driven metric is one that returns an exponential response from the customer. For example, take a look at Domino’s pizza in Chicago. They have a social media plan to communicate deals, promotions, and answer complaints. The metrics behind this plan is to foster a strong relationship between the franchises and their customers. The value behind the activity is a strong communication from Domino’s and a demonstration that they listen to their customers. The results are continued purchases and a strengthened relationship.

Second, avoid the temptation to award only activity. Many plans measure the activity of teams and/or individuals. For sales, it can be the number of calls a salesperson makes on customers. For marketing, it can be the number of impressions and/or responses to “calls to action” from campaigns. Both of these are important, but they are not the end goal of any business. The end goal is profits.  The reward should be given to the salesperson that generates the largest margin of profit for an organization. It should be an award to the marketing team that drives business with the least amount of cost. These are viable propositions for any business. A salesperson who can generate millions of dollars of business with one or two sales calls is more valuable than a salesperson who generates 100,000 dollars worth of business from 100 sales calls. If you measure activity then the second salesperson would be awarded over the more valuable salesperson.  Award the value not the activity.

It is difficult to balance activity and value.  The temptation of many companies is to double down on their activity.  They feel it will generate a ton of results.  The reality is that it generates more activity with more costs.  When companies get caught in this trap value becomes an afterthought.  The result is a lower profit margin and a loss of highly valued customers.

How Do Make Sure You Avoid The Activity Trap?

About the author:

Erroin A. Martin is a Business Advocate with the Von Gehr Consulting Group, LLC, a business coaching and consultancy provider for business owners, executives, and entrepreneurs. He has fifteen years experience working within the pharmaceutical, manufacturing, natural resources, medical devices, software, technology, business services, and agriculture industries in various levels of leadership across six continents. He has led diverse teams in sales, marketing, planning, and in the Army.  He currently coaches business leaders and physicians in the tools needed to plan for their success. Learn more about the Von Gehr Consulting Group, LLC at www.vongehrconsulting.com or call +1 203 433 8079.  You can follow him on Twitter at @Erroin

The Von Gehr Consulting Group, LLC, was founded by Erroin A. Martin to provide business coaching, business consulting, and other services to companies both large and small.  The primary goal is to have his clients be passionate about their business and reach the unachievable.

Many businesses and entrepreneurs are great at making plans.  While it is one of the toughest things to do initially, it is easy to create plans once you get the hang of them.  Where things go wrong is the failure in execution of those plans.  The problem is trying to execute too many things at the same time spreading resources out with no depth.  Success comes from practicing and executing on your strengths, which are only a few items, with intense depth.  Therefore you are executing a mile deep and an inch wide.

Watch Execution Is A Mile Deep Process in Educational & How-To |  View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com

What Have been your experiences?

Before you start smirking and thinking that I have gone stupid, give me at least the next three sentences to bend your ear.  I am not talking about being mean to one customer and super nice to the other.  I am not saying that you should have extreme differences in how you service your customers.  Instead you should start treat them how they want to be treated.

…give me at least the next three sentences to bend your ear.

Going Over Market Research

Companies spend large amounts of cash to segment their markets and define who their ideal customers are.  When it comes to the execution of their marketing and sales plans all that research gets thrown out the window.  Customers that are treated to exactly the same messaging costs companies millions and more in lost sales.

Treating your customers the same can and will result in leaving money on the table.

Still think I am little off?

Run this little exercise.  Take a look at your top performing customers.  Then look at the other eighty percent that make up the rest of your customer base.  Have those customers responded to your latest marketing and sales efforts?  Have they made a move in buying just like your top performers?  (I will give you a hint: the answer is most likely no.)

Companies spend large amounts of cash to segment their markets… then throw all that out the window when it comes to execution.

Now look at the marketing and sales message that you are currently using.  Your top customers are responding to it.  The rest of your customer base is not.  The messaging you are running with is the same… FOR EVERYBODY! You are losing potential sales and new fans because of it.

Male executives will take a product launched to men and just “make it pink.”

If you still think I am wrong, look at the recent article in the Wall Street Journal, about a Boston Consulting Group survey of 15,000 women and 5,000 men across 22 countries.  This survey discovered that male executives make large mistakes by treating their female customers the same as their male customers.

Bartering Prices

One of the most obnoxious points: male executives will take a product launched to men and just “make it pink.”  The executives fail to address even the basic needs of this customer segment and treat the female shopper the same as the male shopper.  (There are nine other mistakes that are made when marketing to female customers mentioned in the article.)

What can you do to avoid these mistakes and not lose potential sales?

• If you are in marketing, test your message with the different customer segments.  Pay attention to what they like and dislike.  Be willing to market to them in how they want to be marketed to.
• If you are in sales, use your pre-call planning to make sure you fully understand your customer.  Do you know where they come from and how they got where they are today?  Can you detail all their biases? Do you know how they make their decisions? Those are just a few questions, but there are many more.  If you cannot answer those three… ask your customer to tell you and then listen!
• Speaking of listening… Listen. Listen. Listen.  Your customers are telling you how they want to be treated.  They tell you in person, in social media, and by where they use their ultimate voice: their currency to purchase from your competitors.  If you still cannot figure it out, ask them and listen.

Treating your customers the same can and will result in leaving money on the table.  Get to know them, understand them, and treat them they way they want to be treated.

Still think I am nuts? I look forward to your comments!

About the author:

Erroin A. Martin is a Business Advocate with the Von Gehr Consulting Group, LLC, a business coaching and consultancy provider for business owners, executives, and entrepreneurs. He has fifteen years experience working within the pharmaceutical, manufacturing, natural resources, medical devices, software, technology, business services, and agriculture industries in various levels of leadership across six continents. He has led diverse teams in sales, marketing, planning, and in the Army.  He currently coaches business leaders and physicians in the tools needed to plan for their success. Learn more about the Von Gehr Consulting Group, LLC at www.vongehrconsulting.com or call +1 203 433 8079.  You can follow him on Twitter at @Erroin

The Von Gehr Consulting Group, LLC, was founded by Erroin A. Martin to provide business coaching, business consulting, and other services to companies both large and small.  The primary goal is to have his clients be passionate about their business and reach the unachievable.

In my previous blog about business planning, I discussed the method of backwards planning.  Whether you are planning a marketing campaign, a social media initiative, a sales plan, or even something unheard of yet… it is best to execute those items in manageable pieces.

…break up the tasks into those easily executable, manageable chunks.

It is best first to understand that backwards planning sets your milestones.  It helps your lay down the timeframe expectations for the various pieces of your plan.  Now you have to execute it.  This is where the principle of the 30 60 90 day execution comes in.

Strategy & Planning

There is no secret sauce to this. No eleven herbs and spices.  No special cola formula to using a 30 60 90 execution plan.  You look at your backwards plan and you break up the tasks into those easily executable, manageable chunks.

Where people go wrong in using a 30 60 90 day execution plan is when they overload the first thirty days with too many tasks to complete.  What was once a manageable tool is now filled with traps of failure of “too much.”

…you need to cross off what is completed and update it at a regular interval.

The next area where business executives tend to fail using this execution plan is that they forget it is a rolling plan.  Once you make it the clock starts.  The thirty days starts now and when they pass, what was on the 60-day portion becomes the 30-day portion and the 90 the 60.

To ensure that you do not stack too much in the first thirty days break it into three buckets of what needs to get done.  So think of the 30 as what needs to get done now.  Think of 60 as what can get done later.  Think of 90 as what can only be accomplished after 30 and 60 get accomplished.  This helps you make sure that you do not stack too much in the first thirty days.

Remember backwards planning is assigning a date and time of when you want to accomplish a particular goal, finish a project, or meet a deadline.

To avoid the second pitfall, forgetting that this plan is rolling, you need to cross off what is completed and update it at a regular interval.  Every month is definitely not a proper interval.  If you do that you are not really looking at or utilizing your plan.  Every day is obviously overkill.  It is best to pick a day in the week.  I am keen to Sundays as this is when I begin looking at what needs to be accomplished for the upcoming workweek.  Sunday I review what I completed (or not, I am human) and update my execution plan for the next 30 60 90 days.

Steps To Success

One of the keys to making this work is that you need to cross off items as you complete them.  It keeps you looking at your plan and not letting things pile up on you.

Remember backwards planning is assigning a date and time of when you want to accomplish a particular goal, finish a project, or meet a deadline.  You are working from that point in time backwards to where you are now so that you can align your resources, assign teams, and avoid unnecessary tasks.  Think of this as a walking the field before the big game or match. You are getting a lay of the land before you actually play.  The 30 60 90 day execution plan is a forward looking business planning tool that works within the frame work of the backwards plan to meet your major milestones.  Think of this as the actual plays you are executing during the game.

I am always interested in know how other people plan and execute their work, how do you plan?

About the author:

Erroin A. Martin is a Business Advocate with the Von Gehr Consulting Group, LLC, a coaching and consultancy provider for businesses and medical practices. He has over eleven years experience working within the pharmaceutical, manufacturing, technology, business services, and agriculture industries in various levels of leadership across six continents. He has led diverse teams in sales, marketing, planning, and in the Army.  He currently coaches business leaders and physicians in the tools needed to plan for their success. Learn more about the Von Gehr Consulting Group, LLC at www.vongehrconsulting.com or call +1 203 433 8079.  You can follow him on Twitter at @Erroin

Happy New Year!  In an effort to join the chorus of blogs, posts, and tweets wishing you success and tips for planning for your resolutions, I am going to add a bit of twist.  When it comes to your business, especially when it comes to your business plans you should build into this New Year the concept of backwards planning.

Backwards planning is a method.

What is this planning backwards you ask?  Well, it is a method used when you have specific date(s) in mind.  Let’s say you are launching an herbal and alternative health business.  You plan to hold a Grand Opening for your new business venture on the first of April.  You are smart, you know what items you need to make this Grand Opening a success.

Business Planning Meeting

You need advertisements, fliers, mailers, business cards, a website, press releases, and etc.  Without adequately knowing how long each of the above items can take to completion or believing that everything can get quickly accomplished before the big day can lead you, and your business, to a very poor start.  So, you apply the principles of backwards planning.  You research how long each piece of your Grand Opening will take.  You take into consideration back ups just in case something cannot be completed on time. With this information in your hands you can assign the resources needed to make this Grand Opening the best loudest mother of all Grand Openings ever experienced.

To plan effectively you need to know how long everything takes.

The above was just a glossing over of what is involved.  Here are the nitty gritty details to backwards planning.

With the Grand Opening date set, as we said April 1^st, and the information on how long each part of the project can take you from your research (see figure 1), here is an example of what backwards planning looks like:

Figure 1

April 1 – Grand Opening

March 27 – Advertising Campaign Begins

March 29 – Wave 4 Mailings

March 25 – Wave 3 Mailing

March 15 – Wave 2 Mailings

March 1 – Wave 1 Mailings (Save the Date)

March 1 – Website launched

February 22 – Final Mailing List Delivered

February 15 – Mailing List Broken into Waves

February 8– Proof Mailing List

February 1 – Mailing List Building Begins

Now of course actions would be assigned to members of your team and capital resources determined ahead of time to keep costs down.  There would also be more detail.  With a calendar in hand (which is an essential tool for backwards planning) you can mark down when the events or milestones should be met.

It allows you to clearly see targets.

To refresh, the concept of backwards planning is that you work backwards from the date you want to achieve a specific goal or task.  It allows you to clearly see when targets should or must be met and allows you to quickly assign resources to the most prioritized tasks.  The best part of this business planning tool is that it allows you to get rid of the non-essential items that waste time and resources.

Goal for Business Plans

Unlike GANTT charts, which plan items in a forward looking fashion, therefore allowing items to creep in and cause delays, this tool is easy to grasp and use.

How do you plan for your business?

About the author:

Erroin A. Martin is a Business Advocate with the Von Gehr Consulting Group, LLC, a coaching and consultancy provider for businesses and medical practices. He has over eleven years experience working within the pharmaceutical industry in various levels of leadership across six continents. He currently coaches business leaders and physicians in the tools needed to plan for their success. Learn more about the Von Gehr Consulting Group, LLC at www.vongehrconsulting.com or call +1 203 433 8079.  You can follow him on Twitter at @Erroin

Marketing and PR have long been fields dominated by women and, as we move into the world of new media, especially all things related to social mediums, it’s no surprise that this is an area where women are amazingly adept. I’ll be the first to admit that, right now, men seem to dominate the field. You can’t toss a stick without hitting guys like Chris Brogan, Brian Solis, Jay Baer, Gary Vaynerchuck and other heavy hitters in the world of new media.  My advice to those talented gentlemen: enjoy it while you can, because it won’t be long until you’re overtaken by the Estrogen Team.

I am joking – but not. I just read a brilliant post Why Women Thrive In Social Media written by my good friend and occasional colleague, Owen JJ Stone, a/k/a @ohdoctah on Twitter. Owen is a big presence in the social media realm and is especially well known for his vlogging.  He understands video in a way that not everyone does, and is a sought after consultant when it comes to businesses wanting to integrate video and other tactics into their social media marketing efforts. But the beautiful thing about Owen is that he also understands women – and why they are so good at what they do.  His latest post on women in the social media realm is insightful and right on target.

Women make the majority of the purchasing decisions in most households

Women make the majority of the purchasing decisions in most households and nearly one-half of the workforce is comprised of women. In fact, in a recent poll done by Time magazine, some 40% of women surveyed indicate they are the primary breadwinners in their household. So, when it comes to brands and their never-changing objective of reaching their target audience, it’s a no-brainer that that audience is, in most cases, women. And women instinctively know not only how to connect with other women in effective ways, they also know what moves women and compels them to make buying decisions.

Our male counterparts… have to work infinitely harder… men are not, by nature, givers.

Power Exercised In Social Media

As such, it only makes sense that women are front and center when it comes to marketing and PR. And, in no time, we’ll see them really dominate (if they aren’t already) the world of social mediums. Women have been unloading on one another since the beginning of time. We dish dirt, we ask advice, we share tips and ideas, we offer shoulders upon which to cry and take them just as willingly when needed in return. We are often unflinchingly honest, with ourselves and one another, and share pieces of ourselves that would – and often do – horrify men. We are empathy personified and are conditioned to nurture from literally the earliest stages of toddlerhood on. As such, with the very fibers of our beings, we completely and totally “get” how important it is to listen within the social media world. And to give before we ever expect to get. Women are born givers. As such, we understand that giving is a natural part of the equation. Our male counterparts, no matter how accomplished, have to work infinitely harder to understand that concept, simply because men are not, by nature, givers.

And so, I leave you with this. The world of social mediums, while filled with manly movers, shakers, book writers and pontificators is, ultimately, a world that will be lovingly and most capably conquered by and led by some amazing women. They are out there already, quietly doing their thing. Some members of the Estrogen Team to whom I look for inspiration are @Laura_Lake @adamsconsulting @BuzzEdition @LizStrauss @Nongling @BethHarte @SSmirnov @zenaweist @BridgetAyers @SarahRobinson and @AnnEvanston. Some of them don’t even know me, or barely know me, yet they still inspire – thus, the beauty of Twitter.  And, please know, this is only a drop in the bucket of the many, many female voices singing so beautifully in the social media choir that so consumes me on a daily basis.

Who inspires you?

About The Author

Shelly Kramer is a Co-founder of V3 Integrated Marketing and founder of Kramer & Co, both headquartered in Kansas City, MO, and doing business with clients all over the world. She’s a sought after consultant and speaker, well-known for her “keeping it real” persona. She’s irreverent, irrepressible and possessed of a wicked sense of humor.  In short, when she’s in the room, you know it. And, when it comes to business her clients will be the first to tell you she is, without question, their secret weapon.  You can read her blog here: http://www.v3im.com/blog and find her on Twitter @shellykramer http://www.v3im.com

You have worked diligently in identifying who your ideal customer is.  You can picture exactly in your mind how they look, dress, eat, drive, and most importantly spend their money.  Yet do you know who influences their decisions?

Now I am sure you have noticed that I have not written what, but who?

It is the “Who” that has a tremendous amount of power over how your ideal customer purchases your product and/or services.  If you have not identified the “Who” for your ideal customer then here are three things you can do to start today:

1.  Ask Your Customer

How weird is that? Talking to your customer? Yet that is something that many businesses still do not do.  I have not quite figured out why that is.  Maybe it is because they fear the answer will be no or something else that is negative. The reality is your customer will tell you “Who” influences them.  A great example is when you ask for (close for) the business and they say,”I have to talk to my spouse.” or “I need to take this to the committee.”  Your ideal customer is telling you who has an influence over the decision.  Asking them ahead of time will let you in on that information.

Engage in an open conversation with your customers and tell them why you want to know who else is involved in the decision.  Remember that people love to talk about themselves.  Ask and listen.  You will be amazed what you will learn.

2.  Ask Your Competition

Look at your competition.  How are they marketing their products/services to your customers?  Who do they target their ads towards?  Are their ads directed towards children, spouses, or how they will win with their bosses?

Your competition maybe wrong, and they maybe right, either way your competition is a wealth of information.  You should never ignore them.

3.  Look At Their Community

They are many factors that go into this last part and you really need to do your homework.  One trap that can easily be sprung is the trap of assumptions.  One thing customers hate is when you make the assumption that they are not in control of their decisions.  Yet, the community where they live, work, network and shop has an influence on them.

If your ideal customer is a heavy user of social media sites like, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. You can see who their influencers are by participating in their conversation.  (Keep this mind, sometimes the influencers do not have the largest network.  This means their voice is not diluted.)  Twitter has many great third party tools that are free that can help your identify a users influencer like Klout.

What is key to all three of these secrets is listening and observing.  By doing this you will be able to learn much more than you could ever know.  With that information you can engage in meaningful value driving conversations with your customers that will result in higher sales.

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