{"id":9641,"date":"2018-04-09T09:00:57","date_gmt":"2018-04-09T07:00:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/passodue.flywheelsites.com\/2018\/04\/09\/profiling-understand-value\/"},"modified":"2024-05-16T20:41:08","modified_gmt":"2024-05-16T18:41:08","slug":"profiling-understand-value","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/diariodiunconsulente.it\/en\/2018\/04\/09\/profiling-understand-value\/","title":{"rendered":"Looking for prospects: profiling to understand their value and potential"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-size: 18px;\">by\u00a0<a title=\"Chi siamo\" href=\"\/en\/passodue\/\">Alberto Aleo<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 18px;\">Who are our <strong>clients<\/strong> and what does profiling them entail? How do we investigate the <strong>potential<\/strong> of a possible <a href=\"https:\/\/diariodiunconsulente.it\/en\/2017\/09\/04\/strategic-budgeting\/\">client that we have yet to meet<\/a>? In a previous article some time ago we defined the <strong>potential of a client<\/strong> as the sum of the <strong>turnover<\/strong> that they could develop if they bought directly from us, plus that generated indirectly (by providing positive references). But what should we consider to obtain such data?<\/span><\/p>\n<h3 style=\"text-align: left;\"><strong><span style=\"font-size: 18px;\">&#8211; &#8211; &#8211;<br \/>\n<\/span><\/strong> <span style=\"font-size: 21px;\"><em>We also indicated that the <strong>potential<\/strong> is, in fact, closely linked to <strong>financial reliability<\/strong>: a customer that could be worth a lot but does not pay promptly or is an unreliable payer is not a good interlocutor.<\/em><\/span><strong><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: 18px;\"><strong>&#8211; &#8211; &#8211;<\/strong><\/span><\/strong><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 18px;\">When assessing <strong>potential<\/strong>, bearing in mind the differences between sectors and focusing mainly on the <strong>B2B<\/strong> markets (those where the clients are other companies), we consider the <strong>KPIs<\/strong> (key performance indicators) that are obtained from the following:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 18px;\">size of the social network to which they belong;<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 18px;\">number and types of customers served by my client;<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 18px;\">profession or business sector;<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 18px;\">frequency and average value of purchases;<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 18px;\">other suppliers used by them;<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 18px;\">revenue or turnover;<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 18px;\">geographical location;<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 18px;\">payment behaviour;<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 18px;\">preferred element of our offer;<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 18px;\">type of interlocutor and his\/her decision-making power;<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 18px;\">number and value of estimates requested.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 18px;\">When you select an indicator, consider not only its ability to provide you with client information but the <strong>reliability<\/strong> and accessibility of the source and the measurability of the data. For example, requesting the financial statement of a <strong>prospect<\/strong> from the chamber of commerce might be complex or anti-economical, even if we could obtain important information by doing so. Moreover, including the level of reliability of the interlocutor with whom we are negotiating among the <strong>KPI<\/strong> would provide qualitative information that is limited or impossible to measure.<\/span><\/p>\n<h3 style=\"text-align: left;\"><strong><span style=\"font-size: 18px;\">&#8211; &#8211; &#8211;<br \/>\n<\/span><\/strong> <span style=\"font-size: 21px;\"><em>If the time taken to retrieve the information is so long that it creates an actual \u2018management cost\u2019 or the resulting data are not quantitative, such an approach is not feasible.<\/em><\/span><strong><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: 18px;\"><strong>&#8211; &#8211; &#8211;<\/strong><\/span><\/strong><\/h3>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-11103 size-full\" title=\"search\" src=\"https:\/\/diariodiunconsulente.it\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/andrew-ridley-554343-unsplash.jpg\" alt=\"search\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1500\" \/><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: 13px;\">Photo by UnSplash<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 18px;\">Personally, I distinguish between two types of sources: the <em>internal<\/em> ones that are automatically available in-company such as the analysis of the past sales data or information available from other departments, and the <em>external<\/em> ones that require a series of direct <strong>questions<\/strong> to the client or requests to other organizations. A useful way to identify the characteristics of a client with high potential and verify the effectiveness of your <strong>KPIs<\/strong> by adjusting them to the real <strong>opportunities<\/strong> that your organization can pursue, is to study the <strong>best<\/strong> <strong>clients you already have<\/strong>: what recurring parameters can you identify by observing them? What is the <em>lowest common denominator<\/em> that they share? In many cases, it will be enough to find similar interlocutors to ensure <strong>commercial success<\/strong>.<\/span><\/p>\n<h3 style=\"text-align: left;\"><strong><span style=\"font-size: 18px;\">&#8211; &#8211; &#8211;<br \/>\n<\/span><\/strong> <span style=\"font-size: 21px;\"><em>Once you have decided on your KPIs, you will have to use them to assign a potential value to the prospect, refining the search further as you increase the knowledge of your interlocutor.<\/em><\/span><strong><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: 18px;\"><strong>&#8211; &#8211; &#8211;<\/strong><\/span><\/strong><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 18px;\">Obtaining objective data (even if initially approximate) will allow you to prioritize your activities with <a href=\"\/en\/2017\/02\/13\/receive-your-customers\/\"><strong>new clients<\/strong><\/a>, to better target <strong>sales forecasts<\/strong> and ultimately to <strong>increase turnover<\/strong>. It will also allow you to choose and customize the approach <strong>strategies<\/strong>, optimizing the costs of an activity such as that of <strong>new business<\/strong>, which is notoriously expensive.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 18px;\">What if you are working in a <strong>B2C<\/strong> market and your customers are the end consumers? I will deal with this approach in a future <a href=\"\/en\/2018\/04\/30\/segmentation-changing-consumers\/\">post<\/a> &#8230;<\/span><\/p>\n<pre><span style=\"font-size: 18px;\">| partem claram semper aspice |<\/span><\/pre>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>How to do new business in a &#8220;scientific&#8221; way.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":295,"featured_media":9642,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[97,85],"tags":[260,244,231],"class_list":["post-9641","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-best-commercial-management","category-abilities","tag-business-2","tag-customers","tag-marketing-en","entry","has-media"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v15.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Looking for prospects: profiling to understand their value - Passodue<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Who are our customers and what does it mean to profile them? How can we profile a potential customer that we haven&#039;t met yet?\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/diariodiunconsulente.it\/en\/2018\/04\/09\/profiling-understand-value\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Looking for prospects: profiling to understand their value - Passodue\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Who are our customers and what does it mean to profile them? How can we profile a potential customer that we haven&#039;t met yet?\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/diariodiunconsulente.it\/en\/2018\/04\/09\/profiling-understand-value\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Passodue\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/passodue\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2018-04-09T07:00:57+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2024-05-16T18:41:08+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/diariodiunconsulente.it\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/question-faces-1.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1920\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"690\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@passodue\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@passodue\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Organization\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/diariodiunconsulente.it\/en\/#organization\",\"name\":\"Passodue\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/diariodiunconsulente.it\/en\/\",\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/passodue\",\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/passodue\/\",\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/company-beta\/10017842\/\",\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/channel\/UCbxyw6anbCWhBzUaNayFTMA\",\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/passodue\"],\"logo\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/diariodiunconsulente.it\/en\/#logo\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/diariodiunconsulente.it\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/Passodue.png\",\"width\":401,\"height\":112,\"caption\":\"Passodue\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/diariodiunconsulente.it\/en\/#logo\"}},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/diariodiunconsulente.it\/en\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/diariodiunconsulente.it\/en\/\",\"name\":\"Passodue\",\"description\":\"\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/diariodiunconsulente.it\/en\/#organization\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":\"https:\/\/diariodiunconsulente.it\/en\/?s={search_term_string}\",\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/diariodiunconsulente.it\/en\/2018\/04\/09\/profiling-understand-value\/#primaryimage\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/diariodiunconsulente.it\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/question-faces-1.jpg\",\"width\":1920,\"height\":690},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/diariodiunconsulente.it\/en\/2018\/04\/09\/profiling-understand-value\/#webpage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/diariodiunconsulente.it\/en\/2018\/04\/09\/profiling-understand-value\/\",\"name\":\"Looking for prospects: profiling to understand their value - Passodue\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/diariodiunconsulente.it\/en\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/diariodiunconsulente.it\/en\/2018\/04\/09\/profiling-understand-value\/#primaryimage\"},\"datePublished\":\"2018-04-09T07:00:57+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2024-05-16T18:41:08+00:00\",\"description\":\"Who are our customers and what does it mean to profile them? How can we profile a potential customer that we haven't met yet?\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/diariodiunconsulente.it\/en\/2018\/04\/09\/profiling-understand-value\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/diariodiunconsulente.it\/en\/2018\/04\/09\/profiling-understand-value\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/diariodiunconsulente.it\/en\/2018\/04\/09\/profiling-understand-value\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"item\":{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/diariodiunconsulente.it\/en\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/diariodiunconsulente.it\/en\/\",\"name\":\"Home\"}},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"item\":{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/diariodiunconsulente.it\/en\/2018\/04\/09\/profiling-understand-value\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/diariodiunconsulente.it\/en\/2018\/04\/09\/profiling-understand-value\/\",\"name\":\"Looking for prospects: profiling to understand their value&hellip;\"}}]},{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/diariodiunconsulente.it\/en\/2018\/04\/09\/profiling-understand-value\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/diariodiunconsulente.it\/en\/2018\/04\/09\/profiling-understand-value\/#webpage\"},\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/diariodiunconsulente.it\/en\/#\/schema\/person\/bedd532bcdb7b6f68b1b4bd5928d953f\"},\"headline\":\"Looking for prospects: profiling to understand their value and potential\",\"datePublished\":\"2018-04-09T07:00:57+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2024-05-16T18:41:08+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/diariodiunconsulente.it\/en\/2018\/04\/09\/profiling-understand-value\/#webpage\"},\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/diariodiunconsulente.it\/en\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/diariodiunconsulente.it\/en\/2018\/04\/09\/profiling-understand-value\/#primaryimage\"},\"keywords\":\"business,customers,marketing\",\"articleSection\":\"Commercial management,Professional abilities\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/diariodiunconsulente.it\/en\/2018\/04\/09\/profiling-understand-value\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/diariodiunconsulente.it\/en\/#\/schema\/person\/bedd532bcdb7b6f68b1b4bd5928d953f\",\"name\":\"Alberto Aleo\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/diariodiunconsulente.it\/en\/#personlogo\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/7d28a64414ff44a1afcc034ef396492b00f974709aa67e492e6316c8b7b5881f?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Alberto Aleo\"},\"description\":\"Un percorso accademico non convenzionale insieme ad una carriera manageriale che \\u00e8 durata pi\\u00f9 di un decennio nel ruolo di responsabile marketing e di direttore vendite per note aziende italiane, mi hanno trasformato in un \\u201carchitetto\\u201d di strategie di mercato. Nel 2011 ho fondato insieme a mia moglie Alice lo studio di consulenza e formazione Passodue il che mi ha permesso di poter mettere a disposizione dei clienti un bagaglio di esperienze e conoscenze molto vario, che spazia dall\\u2019economia, al marketing, alla gestione di reti commerciali.\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO Premium plugin. -->","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/diariodiunconsulente.it\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/question-faces-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/diariodiunconsulente.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9641","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/diariodiunconsulente.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/diariodiunconsulente.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diariodiunconsulente.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/295"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diariodiunconsulente.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9641"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/diariodiunconsulente.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9641\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diariodiunconsulente.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9642"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/diariodiunconsulente.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9641"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diariodiunconsulente.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9641"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diariodiunconsulente.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9641"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}