Find Customers

Highest and Best Use, Customer Style

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In real estate development, there’s an expression: “highest and best use” – it refers to something that is permissible (by law), possible (can be executed), financially feasible, and maximally productive. Whether you’re self-employed, or you work for someone else, this is a concept you can apply to your work, and to your selection of customers. Because it’s precisely why targeting is so important.

Often, business opportunities will present themselves. If we don’t have a full pipeline, or revenues are down, or we’re just starting out, it can be tempting to work with any customer who comes in the door. But this can be a bit of a trap. These customers that aren’t “maximally productive” (or prevent us from being maximally productive), may keep us working in our businesses, long after we should be working on our businesses. So while it’s prudent to make sure there’s money coming in to keep the wolf from the door, it’s important to carve out time and space to cultivate the right customers – the ones that will let you make highest and best use of your time, and your business.

I’m Megann Willson, and I’m one of the partners here at PANOPTIKA. PANOPTIKA means “seeing everything” – because we work with our clients to help them see everything they need to consider to make better decisions and grow their businesses. You can find us on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and please subscribe below to receive our monthly newsletter for more News You Can Use.

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Ahead by a node…

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Intersections. Serendipity. Chance collisions.

All of these have played a part in our work this week. I’ve been travelling, speaking, and listening all week and all of it reminded me about the importance of making connections between all the things we do. First, I was the kickoff speaker at the Canadian Association of Movers (CAM), where I talked about managing your online reputation. We had some interesting and challenging discussions about what to do when a customer calls you out in cyberspace, including how apology strategies have, and haven’t, changed since the time when we would all telephone customer service to get a resolution to our complaints. I also talked about how a collaborative partner can help us manage things that are challenging for us. My own talk dovetailed very well with one from Miki Ho of Beazley, who talked about cybersecurity and how to protect your company from a host of online assaults. The President of CAM’s partner organization IAM, Chuck White, went into how to prepare for intergenerational workforces, as well as what to expect from growing industry consolidation (and why the need for collaboration is going to only continue to grow). 

Then, returning to town, where the panel I was part of at the Women’s Entrepreneurship Knowledge Hub discussed networking for women entrepreneurs, morphed into a discussion of opportunities for collaboration. We were talking about hubs, which got me thinking about how nodes are actually more important. Hubs are a central place from where all the spokes radiate. Nodes, on the other hand, are a key part of any sort of network (even The Tube, like in the photo above), and they function a bit differently. Nodes are connectors that have entrances and exits. Important pathways may originate or terminate at a node, or simply pass through, but without the node, they simply don’t happen. We also talked about representation, and the idea that “if you can’t see it, you can’t be it”. And about how networking isn’t transactional nor linear – that the connections were often weak ties in one area, but powerful in another. 

From that meeting, I moved to the AGM of the CCSBE (Canadian Council for Small Business and Entrepreneurship), where I was happy to be reaffirmed in my role on the Board. We had yet another discussion about the importance of collaboration – in this case between our Council and the many academic institutions and practitioner sites (where entrepreneurship is born, fostered, and evolves). We hope to really be a node that connects entrepreneurs with educators, facilitators, incubators and accelerators in a host of ways. 

The connections and serendipitous discoveries continued as I was representing PANOPTIKA at the Life Sciences Ontario breakfast. There was a tremendous nearly-all-women panel that included Awake Labs, the Ontario Brain Institute, Holland Bloorview Kids Rehabilitation Hospital (one of the discussions at the movers event was a supplier’s tremendous tribute to the importance of family), and the Community Living Association of South Simcoe. There it was again: representation. Family. Connections. Networks. Collaboration. 

All of this, in short, is a way of saying, the connections you make are not linear. They do not just join directly from one thing to another. But in nearly every case, the idea of being a node, or a connector, and finding ways to help others with their business challenges would come back as help to you – just not necessarily as you expected, nor on your timeline. So go forth, network. Be a node. 

I’m Megann Willson and I’m a Partner and the CEO at PANOPTIKA. We help our B2B customers see everything they need to know to make better decisions for their businesses. You can also find us on Twitter, LinkedIn, or Facebook. And if you want to have insights about ways to make your business better, delivered directly to your inbox, you can use the button below. 

 
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Drum Roll, Please. Here are the Best New Ways to Get Customers.

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Modern marketers need modern methods.

Am I right? You might think this article is going to spend lots of time talking about building pipelines and creating conversion funnels, using social media to generate leads and attract prospects with content, mining data to unearth new insights, and more. Do read on, and see if you’re right.

Do you remember last week’s post, about how something may resonate with you, and then suddenly you’re seeing it everywhere? Sure enough, that happened to me. (I checked my bias, though, and validated – these things do work).

First, I was speaking with consultant and coach Debbie Adams of PeopleCan about how, despite the many tools we have at our disposal, some of the best and easiest sales come because we’ve already impressed the customer, and we aren’t listening carefully enough to realize it’s time to stop selling. I also overheard a conversation between two business women and one was asking the other about getting new customers, when privacy regulations seemed to be making it harder and harder to use email. “It’s easy, said one. I phone them.” Cold-calling is sometimes most effective because it’s simple and unexpected. And it makes you take time to think about the person on the other end of the line, before you begin – at least if you do it well. (For more info on how to do that, check out The Phone Lady – she works with entrepreneurs and enterprises to help them get better at using the phone). Lastly, to use Steve Willson’s favourite F1 quote: “Get in there, Lewis!” In other words, go to where potential customers are. Have conversations. Engage. Show them you’re a real person. You’ll be pleasantly surprised on one-on-one outreach will help build momentum in your business. So, in short, three tools that are underused and can freshen up your sales numbers? 

  1. Listen carefully for clues that people you know are already ready to buy.
  2. Pick up the phone and call. 
  3. Go out and meet prospects in person at an event that interests them. 

Oh, and one more tip about the customers you’ve already found? In this post by Devin Haman, he says that you can come up with more things to sell your existing customers, by proactively fixing problems today’s proactive customers may not even have discovered yet. 

I’m Megann Willson and I’m one of the Partners at PANOPTIKA. We work with our clients to help them see everything they need to make better decisions – using better data, a better approach, or better metrics. If you need help deciding which metrics will work best for you and your team, so that you can find, serve, and keep more customers, we can help. You can also follow us on Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn.  For more news you can use to help you or your team to make better decisions, click the handy button, below.

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What to do if you don’t know what you don’t know.

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This post from February 2019 was revised and re-posted in January 2020.

Learning about the technical specs of a scientific innovation. Exploring country data from the CIA. Studying environmental protection regulations. Investigating commitments to climate-change agreements in multiple countries. Researching trade data on purchasing patterns in five different verticals. Interviewing key stakeholders in the three most promising industrial sectors.

What do these things have in common? They were all part of an “unknown unknowns” exploration we did for a client of ours. If you’re in an established business, with multiple competitors, chances are, there’s data out there to help you make key market decisions. If you sell soup, soap, or shampoo, there are often standard reports than can be purchased quickly, and many case studies to help guide your thinking. But if you’ve invented a new scientific/industrial/biotech/pharma type thing, that theoretically has multiple applications, in several verticals, how do you make an argument that it’s possible to commercialize? When we set out to do a market landscape for a product that’s almost ready to market, there isn’t usually a simple answer ready and waiting. Instead, we do a deep dive with you about your product. Then we use our expertise at multi-modal research to decide the best way to narrow down your options, as cost-effectively as possible. Finally, we find experts on the ground who have similar or related expertise, to help us get the answers you need to make critical decisions about your business. That’s what we did with the exploration at the start of this story.
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The good news? At the end of it all, our client got an innovation grant that helped him and his team to scale their operations, and a few years later, they’re running a thriving business with operations in multiple countries and for several industrial verticals. We’re proud to have played a small part in that. All because we like to help our customers see everything, and make better decisions.

I’m Megann Willson, and I’m one of the Partners here at PANOPTIKA. We work with all our clients to see everything they need to know to make better decisions. That means following a lot of different threads, sometimes, and then weaving together a story that makes sense no matter how complex or ambiguious their decision seems at the beginning of the journey. We can help your team, too. For more insights, follow us on Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn, and sign up for weekly news you can use with the orange button, below. 

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Dream Big, Plan Small!

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By Friedrich Haag, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=36033096
Do you have a big idea for a new business? Big ideas are fabulous, and they can provide you with a big payoff. On the other hand, they are often also riskier, more time consuming, and require a larger investment. So what can you do?

One way to manage a big business idea, is to dream big, but to think small. Consider your idea (a new restaurant, perhaps?) and think about whether there are mini or even micro versions of that idea. Using our restaurant example, you might think about a much smaller bistro space, and figure out whether you can make a decent margin using that business model. Or for an even smaller investment, a small catering operation with a rented kitchen might get you on your way, or even a #foodtruck or #foodcart. If you can start with one of those tinier businesses and have a plan to scale, you can reduce your risk at the outset, and build as you go.

Do you have any other big ideas you’d like to shrink down to a more manageable size (or have you used this approach successfully)? We’d love to hear your story.

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​I’d love to have my own business – if only I knew what kind of business to start!

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Does this sound familiar? For me, I’m always surprised when I hear this, although I hear it over and over again. The easiest business to start is one that solves a problem, one that people will pay to have solved. Whether that’s creating delicious homemade cakes that make the person celebrating feel extra-special, to measuring air quality and helping clients to put systems in place to improve it so they can breathe better, or even providing custom home renovation services for someone with ideas but who’s all thumbs – businesses that solve problems or challenges are simply easier to sell. That’s because you don’t need to invest as much time educating the customer as to why they would want to solve that problem in the first place. They’re already actively looking for a solution!

Of course, the next step is a bit trickier: you also need to have the wherewithal to solve the problem. If you’re not a baker, or an environmental scientist, or handy with tools and building materials, none of our examples are going to be a fit for you. So what CAN you do? This is an area where mind-mapping can come in handy. The mind-map is a great tool for capturing a lot of free-flowing, uncensored ideas. Set a timer for 15 minutes – no more. This is more work than it sounds, and by then you’ll need a break from thinking. Get yourself a large piece of paper, or a white board, or a large expanse of wall and a stack of sticky notes. Start by writing down all the things you can do, that solve problems for people. Capture everything. Don’t try and narrow it down yet. What sorts of things do people ask you to do already, because you’re good at them, or you know how to do them in a unique way, or because those same people don’t know how to do them for themselves? Keep writing. If one “job” makes you think of another, great. Write that one down too. Just keep going until the timer tells you to stop. Although it might be tough to get started, I’m pretty certain you’ll be on a roll as you move toward the end of your 15 minutes. Ideas always bring more ideas.

Now, go get a drink of water, or a cup of tea, or take a little walk. Then  come back to your mind-map. It’s time to start sorting. Which ones do you really like doing? Which are you uniquely qualified to do, more than most people? And here’s the million-dollar question: which will people pay you to do? Often the things you’re best at, or that are most enjoyable, don’t obviously intersect with what customers will pay for. It’s up to you to find that intersection between work that works for you, and work that’s lucrative enough to make a living. So while I never advocate working at work you dislike every day, if something feels like a real calling, AND you feel like you’re fairly compensated for doing it, you’ll be much more likely to stick with it when your business hits its inevitable valleys.

Do you have some ideas that look like they might actually be the start of a business? Great! Next time let’s talk about ways to see whether customers really will pay what you think they’ll pay – or in more technical language, defining and validating your value proposition.

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