What is a “Buyer Persona”? Some organizations find it helpful to create a prospect persona. This can be a one or two paragraph written description of your ideal buyers. For example: Mike Jones is a CFO or senior financial executive who works at a company between $5 million and $50 million dollars. He’s held this position at least three years and seeks to improve the systems and efficiencies within his company. He does not make quick decisions, but is willing to try new things if they have a compelling ROI. He is in the early to mid-stages of his career, and has the credibility within his organization to drive a new initiative or convince others that his decision to allocate budget is sound. He can make the decision to purchase, but may seek to validate it with other team members. Once he decides, however, the sale is very likely to move forward. A Buyer Persona doesn’t infer that all of your buyers fit this single description, rather that it is indicative of your ideal prospect.
Let’s say you’re an insurance agency producer selling P&C, and you are targeting contractors. Your Buyer Persona might sound like this: Bob Smith owns a small 10 person electrical contracting firm. He’s been in business 10 years and his revenues are in the $2-3 Million range. His firm owns 5 vans and operates out of an older commercial building with modest offices and a garage. He is trying to keep costs in line because of the soft economic climate, thus his vans and other equipment are beyond their normal replacement cycle. Bob is a conservative buyer, but open to innovative suggestions as to lower costs and optimize coverages. If you have yet to do this simple exercise, give it a try. It can then be integrated into the Prospect Scorecard (www.ProspectScorecard.com) to better qualify and quantify your sales opportunities and pipeline.
StartUpSelling, Inc. provides outsourced insurance agency marketing, sales and lead generation services focusing in the areas of insurance agency eMarketing, web seminar marketing, insurance telemarketing, insurance agency SEO, insurance agency social media marketing and website development..