Determining how you will focus on your target market or who your target market is for that matter can be very easy if you have been in business for a while. If you have not been in business for a while I strongly recommend reading what Dr. Flood and Michelle Gordon have to say about markets in their earlier posts on recessionbusterblog.com.

Target market definition and focus can come from determining your top ten customers and analyzing these clients to determine commonalities in lifestyles, personalities, purchase motivations, business size, type, location, and any other similarities that become apparent.

ACTION PLAN: How to determine your top 10 customers and increase sales (continued below)



Step 1: Make a list of your last 90 days of sales (6 months if you have a slower sales cycle) If you have quick books, look through your "customer center" to see purchase histories or run a "sales report detail". If you have another formal system there is probably a way to export this information to excel or view it in report form.

Step 1 a) Organize your information in a spread sheet. You can use Microsoft(R) Excel(TM) or Google Spreadsheets. In the first column list your client's name, in the second column the total amount of income generate from that client in the last 90 days in the third column list the total number of products or services purchased by each client during this period of time.

(SEE EXAMPLE AND END OF THIS POST BELOW)

• If you want help with making spreadsheets for your business please call me at 616-446-0200  to set up a training session or learn more about my computer training services at www.worldsourcetraining.com

Step 2: Sort on amount of sale to get top clients by income

If you can sort within your accounting or sales program great! Otherwise you can use the spread sheet to sort the data. Simply click on the column header for the amount of sale (should be labeled "B"), click "data" and then click "sort", select "ascending" and click "ok". Woo Hoo! you have your top ten clients by income.

• By the way, if you don't have  a formal way of getting your top ten clients, I recommend this very easy to use Customer Manager that  organizes customers, sales, invoices, and everything else to do with your customers. It is very inexpensive (less than 50 cents a day) and very effective in keeping your billing organized, keeping track of customer contacts, projects, and everything else to do with generating sales and managing the sales part of your business.

Step 3: Sort on amount of transactions/ number of products or services sold to get top clients by units sold

This tells you which clients purchase the most number of products and services from you helping you to determine the stronger, more loyal clients in your business. The more products and services a single client has with you, the less number of similar products and services they purchase from a competitor. When a client uses you as a primary vendor you become the trusted source for the solution to what ever problems you solve with the provision of your products and/ or services.

Step 4: Write down a list of common characteristics for your top ten clients in the fourth column of your spreadsheet

Are your clients all small businesses with 1-10 employees? Perhaps all or most of your top clients are from a particular geographical area, age group, or industry. The majority of your small business clients may do business with you because of a commonly shared perception, what is it? Perhaps your top clients are trying to solve a similar problem with the purchase of your product or service, what is that problem and how does your product or service work to solve it.


Step 5: Where did you get each of your top clients?

In the fifth column make a note of the source of your client. Was it a referral, print advertisement, web advertisement, face book, etc?

Step 6: Write a paragraph statement about your top clients:

For me it was:

 "My top clients are small to medium sized business owners aged 40-60 with advanced education in their field and over 10 years of experience. My top client are all gay friendly, well traveled, and self starters. Most of my top clients purchase from me 4-6 times per year because they are looking to solve the problem of needing more advertising exposure and sales for their business. Their perception is that I can provide this with a website and web marketing tools and their repeat business is due to this perception being satisfied upon purchasing a product or service that I offer. Most of my top clients were gathered via referrals, although one high worth client was from networking at a group like BizNet4Free and another from a print advertisement I placed in a regional LGBT magazine."

My top clients are from the industries:

Printers, Dentists, On line Retailers and Interior Designers

Step 7: Determine how you can find more of these individuals and repeat what you did to get them in the first place

Repeat what ever it was that you did to get your top ten customers. If most of them came from print advertising in a particular magazine or publication then do more advertising; if most of your top clients came from networking in groups like BizNet4Free then do more of that!

I think focusing on your top ten, going back to them to offer additional services that will truly help and of course doing more of what you did to develop those top ten relationships are solid ways to build an excellent target market.

Upcoming Articles:

• 7/30/09:
  How to create facebook, twitter, linked in, and myspace pages to drive traffic to your website and sales to your business
  
  
• 8/1/09:
  Client loyalty, cross sell, and attrition
  
  
• 8/7/09:
  How to optimize your website with the best keywords, descriptions, and texts to get better search engine placement
  
  
• 8/14/09:
  How to use free, in person, and online networking opportunities like BizNet4Free to generate leads and capture new sales
  

EXAMPLE OF MY SPREADSHEET:

1	A	B	C	D	E
2	Client	Sales	Units	Source	Traits/Commonalities
3	Jane Doe	$12,000	4	Print Ad	LGBT friendly, age 55, travel
4	John Doe	$9,000	2	Referral	LGBT friendly, age 46, Dentist