Ingredients: Target Market Research and New Market Position

Target market research is another direction to look if prospects are telling you they don’t need what you are offering. If you think a company needs a team-building retreat, but they think their problem can be solved with more skills training, you won’t make a sale.

What are the hot topics in your market’s trade press? What blog posts in your niche stimulate the most comments? What themes are being addressed at industry conferences? What issues seem to surface frequently in social media exchanges?

When you learn more about how prospects view their own challenges, you can develop a new market position to match their mental, or real-life, purchase order better. Often just a change in language can alter how prospects view your offer. Your retreat might turn into a sale if you described it as “an intensive three-day training program in the critical skills needed for effective teamwork.”

Ask current and former clients to help you position your services more positively. One way to discover how your market perceives the value in your work is to ask satisfied clients for a testimonial letter. The way they describe the work you do and benefits they received from it can give you valuable clues in how to sell it to others. An evaluation questionnaire can be used for the same purpose. Try asking, “How would you describe my service to someone else who could use it?”

It’s also possible you will discover that you’ve chosen the wrong market; the perceived need for what you offer just isn’t strong enough, they aren’t willing to pay what you need to charge, or the size of the market is too limited. In this case, it’s time to position yourself for an entirely different market. Make sure you do your homework on any possible new markets in advance, so you won’t make the same mistake a second time.

A career counselor who is having a hard time finding individuals who will pay her fee can market herself to companies in need of outplacement services. A computer software trainer who discovers that large companies prefer working with training firms that can serve them on a national scale might find a better market in small to midsize organizations. Keep asking the question, “Who is most likely to hire me?” until you find the right fit.