Dear Farillio member,

On 16th March 2021, you asked our inspiring expert Louis Grenier on the Go Far Fast Show:

“I’m really struggling to work out who to sell to. I had some early success with some customers who seemed to like my product, but Covid’s changed how they buy stuff and now they’re not so interested. I’ve never done personas, but I keep hearing how they can help. Where can I go to learn how to do a persona – and what is it really?”

And Louis said:

Be mighty always, Farillio

Transcript:

“Firstly, I feel for you and I know it's not easy to have to change things around because of a pandemic. It's not easy and you're doing a very tough job. The important thing about understanding your market is is that you need to understand why they buy from you. Where do they hang out? How did they make this decision? What other alternatives did they look into before looking at you? Why did they buy it from you and not someone else? Those are a set of questions that you can ask yourself and that you can ask recent customers. You can also ask customers who bought from direct competitors. Once you have that you need to really do the job of layering it down and asking yourself are there any differences in the market that could put you at an advantage? This is an important question. Is there any group of people who are part of a bigger group that you have thought of targeting? Could they put you at an advantage because you could become the best and the only solution for them? Those are hard questions to ask because you have to trim things down, that's how it starts. So again, market research. Just ask those questions, send surveys with similar questions, use your intuition, look at what direct competitors and alternatives are doing. Buyer’s personas are usually mostly bs because they focus on demographics, thermographics, and geographics – everything but the reason why people buy from you. Granted, if you're selling accounting software for a specific industry already, you know the industry and where it's at, but it doesn't tell you why people buy. It doesn't tell you where they are when they are experiencing the triggers to buy. It's doesn't tell you when, with whom, and answer all of those questions. Once you understand that things become much easier and then you can make the plan. Usually the issues of 'I don't really know who to target' and 'it feels like I'm not really good for anyone' stems from the fear of narrowing things down. Once you narrow things down and understand that you can dominate that small market and then move on, things become much easier."

Ask your question:

If you have any questions that you'd like us to ask in a future Go Far Fast Show, send us a DM on Twitter or on LinkedIn. We'd love to hear from you!

Want more from Louis?

You can also find Louis’ answers to other questions being asked by you and your community in our Dear Farillio Expert section on our blog site, and Louis’ great guidance on marketing here.

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