Profile of non-ideal customer. What clients to refuse and why it is vital

Imagine this situation: you are the founder of a very young SaaS company, trying to find the first potential customers and interest them, and suddenly a huge corporation appears in front of you and starts waving its money. They found you and want to buy what you sell.

But wait. You do not develop tools for such companies. And, damn it, never even worked with corporate clients . And money beckons: you just have to reach out - and they are yours.
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What to do?

The majority in this case chooses money - and this is one of the biggest mistakes you can make.

Taking money from the wrong customers is a death sentence for the company . And I should understand this.

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How Google and Oracle almost ruined my startup

In 2007, one of Google’s senior executives became interested in a startup I was working on. We knew that our product was not developed for corporate clients, but we did not want to lose such a big sum - so we took the money. Over the next few weeks, we conducted tests with clients, including Oracle and Intuit.

It seemed to be a goldmine: we started selling our product to the world's largest companies, and it did not look like we would have problems with them. They did not cease to repeat that they do not need any special relationship or changes in our product.

But it was not true.

A year later, we were left with nothing . Our product was not designed for such large companies, so they, of course, had requests that we could not satisfy. We were selling a product to a non-ideal customer, and it almost killed us.

Money must be sought, without losing the head

Especially in the beginning, when it is difficult to refuse new customers. But there is no amount that can compensate for the choice of the wrong customers.

If your product is bought by an imperfect customer (imperfect in the sense that it does not benefit from using the product), it can destroy your business:

• There will be a lot of unnecessary fuss, and those. support overwhelmed with bids.
  
• You will be bombarded with requests to add new features and even try to influence the product development plan, sending it where you do not need it.
  
• Due to constant complaints, the team’s mood and culture will deteriorate.
  

Such a client will inevitably leave you. But the worst thing is that he finally slammed the door loudly: talk about the unsuccessful experience of working with you on Twitter, writing in a blog, what a terrible product you have and so on.

Before moving on, I will repeat it again: money from the wrong customers can destroy the company and the brand.

How to learn to accurately recognize imperfect customers

To understand which customers are imperfect for you, it is necessary to clearly distinguish between three types of customers you will encounter:

1. Ideal customers are those for whom you have developed your product and whose needs you know in the smallest detail.
   
2. Additional clients are those to whom you will sell the product, earning a little on it, but not concentrating all your energy on their needs.
   
3. Imperfect customers are those to whom you do not want to sell your decision and who should persistently discourage it from you to buy.
   

From the very beginning, we at Close.io understood that we were working for small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs). These are our ideal customers, and we knew that our product would be extremely useful to them.

Our additional customers are freelancers and individual users. We did not develop our solution for them, but we did not try to dissuade such customers from buying.

Finally, our imperfect customers are corporate enterprises and government institutions. Our tools are not designed for such customers and their needs, and we knew that they would not benefit us.

We understood that we should refuse such clients, no matter how large sums we were offered: “Our tools are not for you, and we do not need your money. If you continue to insist, you will be treated like an SME, and as a result of your organization it will bring nothing but harm. ”

Team non-ideal client profile

Having decided on who the imperfect customer is for you, you need to bring this knowledge to the team. You should have a one-page cheat sheet about the ideal customer - and the same for non-ideal customers.

How concise it will be - you decide. The main thing is that the meaning is:

“These are the customers to whom we do not want to sell our product. They are not suitable for our business, and we will not be useful to them. They must be abandoned at all costs. ”

If you succeed so clearly in putting this into the heads of your team - especially sales and marketing specialists - they will be able to focus on a more specific goal and will work much faster and more efficiently.

Imperfect discouraged customers - great advertising

Like this? How can customer rejection attract other customers?

Behind this is a beautiful causal relationship. You tell a potential customer:

"Judging by what you described to me, our solution does not suit you."

People are not used to hearing rejection when they want to buy something. They will argue with you, they will try to convince you. But you will be adamant.

Because such a sincerity and integrity of your failed client will remember forever.

And therefore, they will tell others about you - including the right customers. After all, when you explained to an imperfect client, why he does not suit you, you also told about who the ideal client is for you. And since trust between you has already been established, they will tell about you in every possible way just to those you need.

Cutting off imperfect customers at the marketing stage will save you from unnecessary noise in the sales funnel.

Knowing who you are imperfect customers for you, you can put a message in the marketing campaign that will alienate them in advance - and your sales funnel will not be littered with messages from them.

I will give an example. Let's say we come up with an ad for Close.io. One could write this:

"The best CRM in the world for remote sales".

(Such advertising can bring a wide variety of potential customers.)

But we will write this:

"The best CRM for remote sales in the field of small and medium businesses."

The message for corporations and companies is bigger: "You are not here . " So we get rid of unnecessary customers.

And what if clients come to us with an insufficient budget and even those who are looking for a free tool? Then write this:

“The best CRM for remote sales. Only $ 65 per month.

Now those who are looking for a free tool will be cut off: they will see that your solution is not for them.

Such restrictive filters prevent imperfect customers from entering the funnel and creating noise. But in order to do this, you need to know exactly which clients you do not need.

And if I do not know which clients are ideal for me and which are not?

If you are at the very beginning of a journey, it’s quite natural not to know who the ideal client is for you. You may even have a lot of demand from customers you did not expect. This is normal. In sales, it is important to be able to listen and learn.

Take a look at potential customers who contact you and find out:

• Why did they turn to you?
  
• How did they find you?
  
• What alternatives do they have?
  
• What problem question made them look for a solution like yours?
  
• How big is their budget?
  
• How do they make a decision?
  

If you ask these questions 20-30 times and find something in common in the answers, you will have a good lead.

Do not sell your product to everyone. Take your time, listen and learn from the examples of your imperfect clients. The difference between rushing to success and falling into the abyss is in correct work with the right customers.

About the translator

The article is translated in Alconost.

Alconost is engaged in the localization of games , applications and sites in 68 languages. Language translators, linguistic testing, cloud platform with API, continuous localization, 24/7 project managers, any formats of string resources.

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