How to Avoid Wasting Time on the Wrong Target Market

The wrong target market is not limited to a sales problem. The damage starts with your lead generation system, then spreads to your entire business.

Idioms about salespeople like “she could sell sawdust to a sawmill” have a fundamental flaw. Exceptional salespeople don’t waste their time on prospects who aren’t in their target market. Contrary to what some sales leaders think, you can’t sell to everyone. When you focus on the wrong opportunities, your cost of sales increases and your close ratio decreases. You sabotage the chances you’ll become a stellar salesperson.

The wrong market to target is not limited to a sales problem. The damage starts with your lead generation system, then spreads to your entire business.

Your Target Market Is Like the Foundation of a House

A bad foundation affects the entire house. Cracks appear in your drywall. You walk around on uneven floors. Windows and doors shift out of place. A similar outbreak of issues occurs when you select the wrong target market. People on your list never open the emails you send. No one attends your webinars. Salespeople can’t get appointments. When you do get engagement, they aren’t true leads. They’re people who are too polite to say “no.”

How to Determine if You’re Targeting the Wrong Market

Sales reps who don’t get responses and a lead generation system that doesn’t produce results are two symptoms of having the wrong target market. Unfortunately, they could also be caused by other issues like having the right market but addressing the wrong issue. Test if you have the right target market using the 5 questions I ask in this short video.

• Is your messaging specific to this target market and the contact role?
• Is your message about them, or is it about you?
• How many attempts are you making?
• Are you using a campaign approach to reach contacts?
• How many customers do you already have in your target market?

The video also shares how to use your answers, and next steps.

3 Steps to Choose the Right Target Market

1. Define your ideal client. Whenever I ask someone in a consultation or lead generation training to describe who they’d ideally work with, I’m told about clients who are:

• Satisfied
• Profitable
• Fun-to-work with

I agree, those are the best to work with. But those aren’t qualities you can use to build a list. Go beyond the surface level. Think about:

• Why are they satisfied? What problems have you solved for them?
• How do you balance providing the right level of services without putting in too much work so they become unprofitable?
• Why are they fun to work with? Is it personality-driven or does it stem from the value they place on your company and its services?

Keep these answers in the back of your mind as you move to the next step.

2. Analyze the rest of your clients. Even after digging deeper, you won’t have everything you need to develop a list. For that, you’ll need to evaluate the rest of your clients and look for what they have in common. You can sort them by:

• Business maturity
• Industry
• Location
• Key contact
• Size

Use the answers from step 1 to see where there’s overlap between most of your clients and your ideal. As you go through the exercise, remember this is the foundation building stage. To keep cracks out of your lead-generation strategy, be selective.

3. Don’t impose artificial limits. Your target market focuses your attention on the right sales and marketing opportunities. It isn’t meant to enforce arbitrary restrictions. You’d rather not focus on a single industry? Choose cross-industry instead. Want multiple target markets? Go for it.

What You Can’t Sacrifice Are Your Solutions

However you define your target market, be sure your solutions fully support their businesses and solve real problems your prospects are experiencing.

Play the Long Game with Aspirational Markets

There will be businesses you want to target but have never sold to. This lack of experience lengthens the sales cycle. It’s going to take you more time to grab their attention. Avoid pouring too much time or resources into these organizations at first. Wait until you have a healthy sales funnel and are getting results from your current target market.

What to do When You Need to Shift Markets

External factors can force you to change your business plans. Upheaval caused by the pandemic in 2020 led many businesses to switch target markets. If you find yourself in this position, here are three places you can look to identify a different target market.

1. Past clients – Go over everyone you’ve worked with in the past three years. Look at size and industry. What’s the state of business for these companies? Are they experiencing the same issues as your current market or are they largely unaffected?
2. People interacting with your marketing campaigns – Your current marketing lists could have hidden opportunities too. When you send emails, what have people been clicking on? Which contacts consistently open your emails? Is there a secondary market hiding in the data you’ve overlooked because you’ve been prioritizing other solutions and organizations?
3. New markets – When business is going well you don’t want to abruptly pivot to new markets because it can drain your sales and marketing budget. But there’s less risk when your current market isn’t producing and you need to fill your pipeline. Think about your solutions and problems you solve. Are there businesses beyond who you traditionally work with that you could successfully serve? To get your foot in the door, look for shared connections and ask for referrals.

Next Up: Engage Your Target Market

Once you’ve defined the right target market, you need a plan to reach out and engage people. Join my webinar, Lead Generation Strategies that Work Right Now, on April 7 at 2 p.m. Eastern. You’ll discover the most effective activities you can use to attract leads, increase visibility, and create the opportunities you need. Learn more and register here: https://www.smmconnect.com/events/2576?gref=calendar

Kendra Lee is a top IT Seller, Prospect Attraction Expert, author of the award winning books “The Sales Magnet” and “Selling Against the Goal” and president of KLA Group. Specializing in the IT industry, KLA Group works with companies to break in and exceed revenue objectives in the small and midmarket business (SMB) segment.

Subscribe Now

Get our newsletter and digital focus reports

Stay current on learning and development trends, best practices, research, new products and technologies, case studies and much more.