Mentor Tuấn Minh talked about five customer types including: the final decision-maker, the user, the technical person, the gatekeeper, and the "evangelist." But the question is, how to approach them?
Abivin is a company that provides software to optimize the delivery system, essentially helping delivery personnel take the shortest routes and cover the most points, thereby saving 30-40% of manpower and delivery time.
This software is very new in Vietnam and we, the people at Abivin, had never worked in the transportation field before. After some time fumbling around to find customers, we came up with five steps to approach customers as follows:
- The first step to survey potential customers. The salesperson needs to gather all information about the companies, including size, revenue, profit, organizational structure, and "predict who is the decision-maker for purchasing their product." The list of companies after gathering information is called the "cold contact" list.
- The second step is to approach this list by persistently and skillfully calling, texting, emailing, visiting their office, etc.
- The third step is to arrange an official meeting to introduce the product, called a Demo Meeting. If after the meeting, they are interested and ask a lot about the product, they will become a "hot contact" and there will be detailed negotiations before signing the contract. This is the decisive step of the sales process but not the final step.
- After the sales process , it is necessary to continuously take care of the customer to build a strong and long-lasting relationship with them. If after the meeting, they are not interested in the product, after 3-6 months, they will become a cold contact again and then we have to reintroduce a new product to them.
Among these steps, the first and last steps are the most difficult. Initially, if the target audience is misidentified, the subsequent steps will be very time-consuming and labor-intensive. Some people ask, how to suddenly approach someone you know nothing about? Theoretically, any two people in the world are at most six relationships away from each other, the important thing is whether we are focused enough to find out. The last step, converting hot contacts into buyers, is difficult because paying for a product involves significant risk, making the decision-maker very hesitant. If they say no, all the effort previously put in (which could be months or years of persuasion) is meaningless. The most common mistake is that the sales representative does not follow up closely with the customer and respond at the right time or gives up too soon. This is very easy to make because a representative has to chase many different customers and they can easily miss out on customers. About 80% of sales representatives give up after the first customer rejection but in reality, many people will agree to work with you if you persist until the fourth or fifth time. Our first customer was P&G, fortunately, we had a friend there to ask and find the right decision-maker. However, when selling, we do not just meet one customer persona. The final decision-maker is the most important and the hardest to persuade. But after they agree, you will meet the remaining customer personas: we will meet the technical person to see if the two information systems can integrate with each other, if their technology is too new or too old and cannot be integrated, the project fails. Then comes the user, if during use the product does not work, buttons malfunction, the program or system crashes, even if the director or CTO nods in agreement, the project will not succeed.
You can completely cut logistics costs for your business today with Abivin vRoute!
Click https://www.abivin.com/vroute to learn more!
*This article is originally published by Tia Sang Magazine: http://tiasang.com.vn/Default.aspx?tabid=62&CategoryID=43&News=10076
Five Steps to Approach Customers