Define
Your Customers
Who
Are They and What Do They Want?
by
MLM Consultant Michael L. Sheffield
MLM and Direct Sales Expert
People
come to our office from all over the world. They bring their ideas and dreams
in different degrees of development. Many of our clients have made massive
monetary investments, often at great personal sacrifice, to bring their entrepreneurial
vision to life. Ambitious as they are, these committed capitalists are often
motivated by more than money; they're possessed by a profound sense of having
a mission.
That's why I go into every consultation aware that to these extraordinary
men and women are sharing with us more than just a product concept and business
plan; they are allowing us to look at their vision of the future.
Like all worthy dreamers, out clients are convinced that their "awesome"
product or service will take the world by storm and make them, and a lot of
other people, healthier, happier and very, very rich. They're convinced that
all they need is a good marketing and compensation plan to detonate the next
MLM explosion. If their product truly is all they believe and the timing is
right, they have every reason to expect that through their efforts another
impressive entrepreneurial eruption will happen! Just as it is said that the
key to real estate investment success is "location, location, location,"
the keys to MLM success are "product and timing, product and timing,
product and timing."
In the same way our world is made of the basic elements — earth, wind
and fire; and that human life is sustained by the basic elements — oxygen,
food and water; the most basic components of a Multi-Level Marketing company
are the right product at the right time. The truth is that while
a hot product cannot, by itself, make your company, the lack of a good product
can certainly break it.
To be successful, you need a contagious mission supported by a good management
team. An equitable compensation plan for the distributors is a must. Professionally
designed sales and support literature are imperative. Your distributors demand
and deserve commissions and bonus payouts that are on time. Software to manage
this is no longer a high-tech option but a mandate if you are to compete in
today's market. But the reality is, you can have all these things in place
— and if your product is wrong or your timing is off, there will be
no success.
Without a product or service that meets the real needs of your customers and
provides them genuine value, your company cannot survive. The foundation for
long-term sustained success in MLM or direct selling is a commitment to a
unique, highly consumable "service to mankind" product line.
So, if product and timing are so critical, how can you make sure you get them
right? Part of the answer is — you can't be absolutely sure
until you put your product out there and see what happens. That's part of
the unavoidable risk of being an entrepreneur. But just because some
risk is unavoidable doesn't mean that you can't substantially reduce the risk
you have to take. After all, there's a big difference between absolutely
sure and pretty sure. There is a great deal you can do to determine
how the public is likely to react to a particular product. In other words,
it is possible to ascertain, with a reasonable level of confidence,
what's hot — and what's not.
We have found that the most basic element of the product selection process
is identifying your prospective customers and determining their needs and
wants. Now that may sound like an oversimplification, but in fact, it's a
critical point many people overlook. Oh, they don't do it intentionally. They
just assume that since they understand and appreciate the value of their product,
everyone will automatically be enthralled with it too. The trouble is that's
just not the way things work in the real world. But because of their assumption,
they never put forth the relatively small amount of effort it would take to
find out.
Start With
The Who
It has been said that any mystery can be solved by asking and answering just
six simple questions: Who? What? Where? When? Why? And how? That's probably
true of starting a direct sales or MLM company, too.
We'll start with the "who." Who are the people most likely
to want or need your product?
It's easy to say "everybody," but that begs the question. Remember,
the objective here is to narrow your focus. Does this mean you want to exclude
those who don't fit your target profile? Of course not. But until you establish
whom you're targeting, you can't begin to effectively tailor your message
to appeal to those who are most likely to respond.
Here's the unvarnished truth about product — any product: Be it a potion,
pill or politician, you can't please everyone. Think about your product. Who
needs it? Who wants it? Who would be willing to part with their hard-earned
money to buy it? Identify different categories of people who would find your
product useful, beneficial or desirable.
Now start asking more and more detailed questions about them. How old are
they? Are they predominately of one gender or ethnic origin? What is their
economic status? Are they likely to be influenced by a particular cultural
or religious bias'? What is their family status? What is their typical level
of education? What is their occupation'? Where do they live? Do they own or
rent? What are their hobbies and interests? How do they spend their time?
I How much are they willing and able to spend each month in order to satisfy
the need your product or service will address?
It may seem at first as if this is a futile exercise. After all, network marketing
is a great, level playing field where word of mouth reins supreme, right?
How could you possibly know whose ears will be listening to whose mouths?
But if you stop to think about it, don't most people tend to associate with
other people like themselves? So wouldn't it make sense that your message
might become concentrated in one or more groups of people?
In fact, this does happen with some frequency, and may happen in your organization.
Someone will catch the bug and start telling everyone they know all about
your wonderful product and opportunity. Because they are telling all the people
they know, many of whom fall into one particular category, and those people
are following the example of the first person and telling everyone they know,
also probably in the same group, a concentration forms.
So if it's likely to happen anyway, how can you anticipate the direction it
might go? One way is through a process of elimination. You can certainly establish
who is not likely to respond to your message. Once you have identified
the characteristics of that group, look at the opposite end of the spectrum.
For instance, if your product is a nutritional that promises to restore lost
youth, you can probably assume that teenagers are not prime candidates. By
the same token, if you've developed a new formula that enhances extreme sports
performance, the geriatric crowd may not be the best place to spend your marketing
dollars.
Once you have a general idea of who your target customers are, you can begin
using that information by asking what someone in that category might need
or want. This is the "why" question. In the example of the sports
performance product above, convenience might be a critical factor. A foil-wrapped
snack bar would probably be much easier to use than a powder that requires
measuring and mixing with water or juice. And since young people are less
tolerant of medicinal tastes, it should probably be designed to have an appealing
flavor.
Do you see how knowing who your prospective customer is, and why he or she
will want your product, can help you make some of the critical decisions you
have to make in order to get your product into the marketplace? Trust me —
as you go forward with issues of design, formulation, engineering, sourcing,
positioning, pricing, packaging, presentation and promotion, you will continually
come back to these anchor points: Who is my customer and how will my product
meet the needs of that customer? Finding the right answers to these questions
will take you a long way down the road toward creating a successful network
marketing enterprise.
Connect
With Your Customer
To be successful, the product, distributor and customer must connect. You
need a synergistic interplay to occur among them. The best way to counteract
customer negatives is to know your customers. Listen to them. Understand them.
Know how to appeal to their desires and how to anticipate and eliminate their
factors of resistance before even presenting your product to them.
The story is told of a board meeting held at the headquarters of a large dog
food company. During the conference, the sales manager was going on and on
about the company's terrific advertising, lauding their great salespeople,
and raving about its cutting-edge marketing concepts.
The company president interrupted the sales manager to ask, "If everything
in this organization is so almighty wonderful, why isn't the dog food selling?"
The manager stood speechless. The boardroom was quiet. Just when it seemed
the silence would last forever, the secretary looked up from her notes, and
said to the president, "Sir, the dog food isn't selling because the,
dogs don't like it."
Know your market. Know your customers. Know what they want. Only then can
you define your product with confidence that it will sell.
Michael L. Sheffield is the CEO of Sheffield Resource Network, a full-service direct sales and multi level marketing (MLM) consulting firm. He is a Co-Founder and Chairman Emeritus of the Multi Level Marketing International Association and in 2001 he was inducted into the MLMIA Hall of Fame. As an MLM Consultant, he and the Sheffield team have assisted in hundreds of national and international MLM corporate start-ups as well as offered a full line of services for established direct sales companies. As the most noted expert on compensation plans, he has been a guest lecturer on the subject for the DSA, University of Illinois, University of Texas, Berkeley and Harvard Alumni Association. Long considered the industry's top MLM Consultant , Michael Sheffield has helped launch over 500 new companies and 200 new products marketed by direct selling companies around the globe. He can be contacted at 480-968-6199, Sheffield Resource Network, 2239 N. Hayden Road, Suite 103, Scottsdale, AZ. 85257, website address: www.sheffieldnet.com.
