You must be wondering why we are only talking about the next 10 customers but the logic is a bit different here.
1: Leanings
Identify 10 potential customers: Identifying 10 potential customers that are not your ideal customer but fit in the profile of your end-user.
Identify potential customer persona: Apart from identifying the persona of your customer, it is also important to identify the persona of your potential customer so that more people buy your products.
Increase confidence: This increases your confidence towards the product as you have made a product that can be scaled and has reliability and credibility too.
New customers: When you will get more customers, it will lead to more sales and profit.
Fine-tune earlier findings: You can fine-tune your earlier research findings as per the feedback of new customers.
You need 10 new customer profiles because you cannot focus on a single customer otherwise the targeted audience of your product or business will become very specific. Therefore, it becomes necessary to find the next 10 customers to find out whether you are on the right path or not.
2: Advantages of next 10 customers
When you talk to 10 new high potential customers and if they fit in your end-user profile, then you will have:
High probability of success: These 10 new high potential customers increase the possibility of success of your business. In addition, in the future, if you need investors or advisors, they feel impressed by looking at your customer profiling.
Refine existing processes: You can refine your processes and rectify your small mistakes at the right time.
Negative feedback: If you get negative feedback from the customer, it is good as this means that he likes your product and wants you to improve it. Improvement reduces your risk.
Identify who is not your customer: You get to know who definitely not your customer is and this is also important as you must not waste your time on him.
3: Implementation of the next 10 customers
Let us understand how you will get the next 10 customers:
List- 10 potential customers:
- Make a list of 10 potential customers’ profiles.
- They should be different from your current buyer’s persona.
- You can even find more than 10 customers on the basis of your research.
- Contact:
- Contact these customers.
- Study their life cycle use case as per your product.
- Letter of intent:
- If a customer fits your requirement of a potential customer and the customer is accepting your process, then ask him for a letter of intent.
- It is not a formal letter but just assurance for you that he would like to purchase your product/service when it is launched in the market.
- Make notes and consider:
- If the customer feedback is completely different from your research, make notes.
- Also, see how these notes are going to impact your analysis.
- Contact additional customers:
- With new customers, you will also get new data.
- Now, you will have to see that as per your old beliefs whether you will contact these new customers or not.
- Reconsider your target market:
In case you fail to find the 10 new customers, you will have to think again about your target market.
4: Worksheet for 10 New Customers
Now, make a worksheet to note down your research related to the 10 new customers. Divide your worksheet in the following categories so that you get the right knowledge about the end-user:
- Demographics:
- Gender
- Age
- Income
- Geography
- Job profile
- Psychographics:
- Personality
- Habits
- Priorities in life
- Traits
- Hobbies
- Overall profile:
- Other products that they are using
- The value that they see in other products
- Correlation they find between the product and them
- They buy products from the market or online platforms. These are some broad questions that tell the mentality of the customers.
- Full life cycle use case:
- How do they buy the product?
- How do they use the product?
- Will they recommend it?
- Take feedback from them
- Quantified Value Proposition (QVP):
- Take feedback on the QVP of the product
Some tips to keep in mind while implementing the above steps are:
- These steps may be a bit difficult and take time but they are valuable for your startup journey.
- Do not share the list of your customer profile with anyone outside the company.
- See if the customer agrees with your hypothesis or not.
- Also, make a comparison of the new customers with some of your best current customers.
- Also, think if you need to change the end-user.
There is no harm in changing the customer. You along with your team can decide on that as you cannot afford to make the wrong product.
For example:
- Steve Jobs once said, “Why should I listen to Naysayers (those who say no to everything or give negative feedback)?”
- He took the negative feedback with a positive approach and like a true entrepreneur, he moved ahead in his journey as he was seeing those opportunities that others were unable to see.
- He faced failures with some of the products but he also made such products that have made history.
5: Things to consider while getting the next 10 customers
Identify: While interviewing them, you will have to make sure how your ideal customer should be and this imagination should fit perfectly for most of your customers.
Implement learning in research: The learning that you have gained from the new customers should be used in your research and modify it so that you can move ahead confidently with your product and plan.
Don’t change your process: It is very important that you don’t need to make a lot of changes in your processes due to the new customer profiles like the product and sales technique should remain the same. Many entrepreneurs make a mistake of changing the process as they are getting new customers in the market.
Be honest to yourself: Stay true to yourself.
Take customer feedback: You must have the knowledge about the decision-maker but do remember that he is not your end-customer. Therefore, you will understand the pain point of an end-customer by talking to him only and not through the decision-maker. Therefore, take the feedback of customers only.
Listen carefully: Having an ability to listen carefully is the first step to your success. As if you are ready to listen, it means that you also ready to accept the change in your mind, product, and customer profile.
Based on data: Whatever steps you implement should be done on the basis of data and logic as it is more important than emotions.