Included in this post will be:<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/span> <\/u><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Practicing Patience \u2013 a lesson learned<\/strong><\/p>\n In my last post, I stressed the importance of practicing patience in the IT industry. Pushing sales too hard can put off a lot of business professionals, a key fat that I believe every Channel Manager should be aware of. However, an important lesson I learned this past month was that pushing \u201cfriendly reminders\u201d can be a very vital aspect within our slow moving industry. As we all know, IT professionals are very busy people with a wide array of tasks on a daily basis. A few weeks back I sent off a couple imperative emails to one of my contacts requesting them to perform an action for our company. Several days passed\u2026and no response, so I sent off a \u201cfriendly reminder\u201d email with the subject: Needing your brief atte<\/em>nti<\/em>on.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n Initially I thought I may be acting a bit impatient and pushy, but once my contact replied he\u00a0informed me he had indeed read my initial emails the day I had sent them, but had simply forgot to send a reply due to the busy nature of his job role. It was a key learning experience for me because I assumed patience meant stepping back and letting things play out. That simply isn\u2019t the key to success in business. You need to be patient, but you also need to be persistent<\/strong>. The balance of the two can be very tricky to master, but with practice and experimentation the right equilibrium can be reached.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Know Who Your Customers Are<\/strong><\/p>\n Firms around the world will tell you that profits are single-highhandedly the most important aspect of being in business. However, without effective segmentation it is very difficult to capitalize on your strategies and achieve your sales goals. This past month, after some struggles I took a step back and spent considerable time concentrating my efforts into creating buyer personas. These buyer personas were customer profiles, and fixated on what prospective customers were thinking and doing as they weigh their options and decided to purchase Find it EZ.<\/p>\n I researched our customers and focused on their demographics, company size, revenues, who was making the buying decision, their goals when it came to the use of our product, what challenges our product addressed with regards to their needs, what questions they might have about the usability and value of our products, etc. I also conducted thorough interviews and made a case study to really get into the minds of our customers to fully appreciate how they felt about our offerings. Below is our finished Code Search Pro Desktop persona (click to enlarge):<\/p>\n\n
![\"code-search-pro-desktop-buyer-persona\"](\"http:\/\/www.finditez.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/code-search-pro-desktop-buyer-persona.jpg\")
<\/a>I found this experience to be invaluable, and I would advise all marketers perform this exercise when determining how you\u2019re going to segment your products. Determining a target market isn\u2019t enough, you have to get into the mind of your customers and put yourself in their shoes. Only then will you truly appreciate why customers choose to purchase or not purchase your products. Oh and on a final note, don\u2019t be frustrated if this process takes you days if not weeks. In my humble opinion, if it takes you a day or two to complete this exercise – you\u2019re not doing it right. It takes time to study and understand your clients, just as it takes time to build an effective reseller channel.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"