Practicality and Flexibility
Case Studies
Laser focus on Ideal Customer Profile (ICP)
Have you closed several deals with different types of customers? Which customer segment should you focus on and why? I have experienced this with every single start-up that I worked with. Refusing customers at early stages of the business is heartbreaking.
Who, When, What and How.
Who?
- Individual user. Title, experience, notable behaviour during the closing of the deal or the trial; even where they went to university.
- Company. Industry. Size. Priorities.
- Competition. Strengths and weaknesses. Why is your company better?
When and where does the user connect with you?
- Review inbound and outbound outreaches regularly. Record most successful channels.
- Keep experimenting. People’s behaviours change. Watch what the competition is doing - do it better.
What problems are you solving and How?
- Define very clearly each problem that your customer is facing. Think of real examples.
- State how your product solves each problem.
- How do you measure successful outcomes for each client? They save money? They save time? They increase revenues? Increase productivity?
Everyone in the company should be contributing to ensure the deepest client knowledge is collected and recorded.
Know when to say NO
Has your marketing team been amazing and delivered a huge amount of inbound interest from potential leads? Or your product captured the interest of the media? Is your sales team drowning in meeting requests? Do they complain that more than half of the first calls have not resulted in a follow-up meeting?
Filter the real buying interest from curiosity.
Automated qualification.- Messages. Why inbound leads are interested in the product. What problem are they currently facing? Have they allocated a budget to solving this problem?
- Survey. Ask the lead to complete a survey asking key questions about their intentions.
- Attend an industry event. Reach out to all leads and offer to speak there and then. You will also learn about your competition and industry trends. Those leads who are just curious are likely not to attend.
- One Pager. Factsheet. Prepare a short summary of how the product solves your client problems. Share this with a lead and ask if they are interested to learn more and how they connect to the problems described.
Regular high quality feedback.
Customers do not give feedback. People are too busy with their lives. Remember the last time you got frustrated with a website? Did you search for “contact us” email and write to them? Or submitted a complaint form? Or you just gave up and used another company?
Be proactive with your customers. If you had a Support Chat popped-up: “Can I help you with something?”, you may have shared the problem you are facing.
Multi-channel and regular. It must be easy to complain or praise your product. Create multiple ways of connecting with your users. Collect regular surveys, use “How does a web application work” apps, have quarterly conversations with key decision makers.
Record and review system. Build a ticketing system to ensure timely response and easier analysis of the client queries. Map each concern to a client priority score - the most impactful conversations will be prioritised.
Share. Ensure everyone in your company has access to the latest client feedback. Most importantly, every user should know how much you value their feedback.
This approach not only improves your product but also strengthens customer relationships and loyalty.
Sync with the product team.
Product teams frequently struggle to roll out the features fast enough to match the competition and satisfy customers’ requests. Many of the start-ups I worked with had no clear rule of whose requests should be treated first and why. Every stakeholder, i.e. product, sales, customer success, marketing, and the tech team, was lobbying their team’s priorities without sync to the business’ goal.
Sales, customer success and product must work very closely together. Help them by creating a Client Score. Apply it to each client request and feedback. Have a system for recording all the client data and share it across the whole organisation.
I always encourage Founders to define clear OKRs and KPIs for the business for the coming year, and state the most important goal to focus on for the next three months.
Review everyone’s OKRs regularly. People are motivated by knowing how they contribute to the overall vision of the business.