Sun Tzu on Business Tactics - Part 3 of 6
“Victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win.” - Sun Tzu, The Art of War
A Shot in the Dark
Let’s face facts. These days, if you don’t have a clearly defined target market, your business is in trouble. How are you going to reach the people most likely to buy your product if you’re not even sure who they are? Naomi from IttyBiz says it better than I could:
Imagine the target is, um, a target. And you’re the dude with the gun or the bow and arrow or whatever. If you hit the target right in the middle, you get 50 points. If you hit the outside circle, you get 10. If you aim at 50, you might get 50 or you might get 10. If you aim at 10, you might get 10 or you might get nothing.
So why are you aiming at 10?Your target demographic is your version of perfection. These are the people who are begging for your product or service. They have money to spend and they want to spend it on you. Maybe they don’t know it yet, but you do, and that’s all that counts.
It’s time to start developing some tactics to start bringing in more bulls-eyes and stop wasting energy on shots you take with a hope and a prayer that they’ll hit something.
Know Your Target Demographics
Start by breaking your clients down into demographic groups. Web Marketing Resources defines demographics and psychographics like this: “Demographics refer to statistics like age, income and location. Psychographics refers to preferences, interests and personality characteristics.” It was recently revealed that Best Buy takes this approach to an extreme. They actually create personas for each of their demographics:
Source: The Consumerist
While Best Buy’s methods may be a bit overkill, imagine what having this sort of data could do for your business. Is your marketing plan tailored to each demographic, or is it a One-Size-Fits-Some approach?
Making no mistakes is what establishes the certainty of victory, for it means conquering the enemy that is already defeated.
- Sun Tzu
If you know what motivates your customers, what they want and need, you’re well ahead of the game.
Know Yourself
Clearly defining your target market and demographics is a good start. You’ve defined what your ideal customer looks like to you. Now ask yourself, “What does my business look like to my target customer?”
- Is your shop/restaurant/office clean and inviting?
- Does your website look professional, up-to-date, and provide the right information?
- Take a good look at your business’s weaknesses and see if there’s some way to turn them into strengths.
- Are you offering goods or services your target market values? How do you express this to each demographic?
- Do people even know your business exists?
Understanding your business and the way it’s perceived will go a long way. Just understanding isn’t enough though. A successful business is built on continuous improvement. A good owner also knows what they don’t know, creating partnerships and learning opportunities to improve their limitations.
Measurement and Calculation
Here comes the hard part. How do you accurately forecast sales as a new business? As a growing business? As a service business? There’s always going to be an excuse to put off market forecasting. Why? Because it’s hard. It forces you to take a serious look at your business and set some quantifiable goals. For some great advice on this topic, pick up a copy of On Target : The Book on Marketing Plans. It offers some great tips on how to generate those initial sales forecasts. For instance:
- Use census data to determine the number of people in your target market.
- Find out what data is available in similar markets, or what has been gathered by your competitors.
- Build on whatever past data you have available, and go with your gut instinct.
- Most importantly: GET STARTED! Next year you’ll be able to look back on the data you’ve gathered this year.
Set some expectations for your business. Make sure they’re clear, quantifiable, and have a well-defined due date. “I’m going to lose weight” is not a clear goal. How much are you going to lose, and by when? “We’re going to increase sales” is just as useless. Instead, try “We’re going to increase online sales by 20% in the next 18 months by advertising through channels X, Y and Z.”
See how much more clear that is? 18 months from now it will be very clear whether or not you met your goal. By now this should be easy. You should know your customers better than they know themselves. You should know their demographics and their psychographics. You know what makes them tick. Your business is structured to give them exactly what they need in the best possible environment. You’ve set measurable goals, forecasted sales, and you revisit the numbers regularly. With that kind of preparation, you’ve got a tremendous advantage over the competition.
If you know your customer and you know your business, your success will not stand in doubt.
What’s next?
Sun Tzu on Leveraging Advantage - Part 4 of 6
[…] Sun Tzu on Business Tactics - Part 3 of 6 […]
April 1st, 2008 at 7:22 pm