Digital Game Plan: Connecting with Your Ideal Buyer

Curt Anderson  00:01

Damon, happy Monday. How are you? Man, I’m doing great. Curt, ready to go? Okay, let’s dive in. We’ve got a really fun topic. This is one of my favorite topics. So we’re talking about the digital game plan today. This little tool, this it’s a wonderful resource. It’s completely free, no strings attached. We have it read on our website. We’ll add a link to the chat for everybody. And this is just a wonderful tool that we’ve been working on, building out with our clients over a number of years. And one of the exercises in the digital game plan is the buyer persona. Okay, now, Damon, what do we like to refer to those buyer personas as the soul mates? Those soul mates, right? Like it’s, it’s, you know, where, whether somebody finds you on social media, they find you on your website, whatever it might be that they find you on. It’s, that is, you know, like we refer to them as our soulmates, in your opinion, why is it so important to connect with those soulmates? Well,

Damon Pistulka  00:54

because if you aren’t saying the things that they really, that really resonate with them, then where are they going if they need your products or services? I mean, it’s that simple. If you’re, if you’re talking oranges and they like apples or they need help with apples, then you’re, you’re not going to attract those

Curt Anderson  01:10

customers, right? The other challenge, and I know, man, I’ve struggled with this for years, is when you try to be everything to everybody, what happens

Damon Pistulka  01:19

nothing. You are nothing to no one, because you’re all over the place.

Curt Anderson  01:23

That’s right. So I know you know, some of our biggest struggles have fallen on, like, when we’re trying, like, Hey, we’re going to service this buyer persona. We’re going to service this soulmate, this soulmate, this only you know, again, like you’re spread, spreading out your resources, spreading out your your energy, and it just gets a little bit frustrating. So what we would love to encourage folks when you’re trying to create that buyer personas, like, how do you stay How do you get niche, right? And we’d like to say, how do you niche down till it hurts. Because, man, it hurts when you think like, Well, what about this soul mate? What about this soul mate? What about this soul mate? So what are your thoughts about

Damon Pistulka  01:53

that? Yeah, in the beginning it feels like it’s going to be too restrictive, but once you realize what it does. It allows you to really focus in, right? So I don’t deal you. You use the pink running shoes with purple shoe laces example, right? I know I don’t just want running shoes, and if anyone was looking for running shoes, that’s a pretty wide topic. If anyone’s looking for pink running shoes, okay, now we’re getting narrowed down a little bit further. But if we say, if my customers are looking for pink running shoes with purple shoe laces, that is what I want to talk about, right? And you know, so if I’m a CNC manufacturing component manufacturer, I do contract CNC work, I don’t really want to talk to people that are doing something outside of, you know, about things that are outside of my wheelhouse, or my my brand, or what I’m really going to be helping people with. So it just keeps things focused. As you said, keeps

Curt Anderson  02:54

things focused. So let’s take a look at the digital game plan. So can you see my screen? Yes, I can awesome. And so let’s dive in. So this is a fun exercise, little tool, resource, again, completely free, that we use with our clients. And so, you know, when you take a look here, what we’re looking at is, like, that ideal buyer. So, you know, like, you know, one of we have a couple different ideal customers, our soulmates that we’ve designated. You know, our dear friend Lynn is one of them, Lisa at Steel City Steel Steel City steels and Indiana and so, like, we really resonate with Gen Xers. You know, it’s really we gender wise, it’s it’s we. We absolutely work with both. But man, it’s a lot of women. So it seems like it’s women Gen Xers, and they’re in that B2B industrial space. So like, what we’ve tried to do not that we can’t work with folks outside of those that generation or outside of that scope, but it just seems like that’s a majority of who we’re working with. So I just really encourage you, when you’re going through and you’re just thinking about, you know, especially for folks that are just starting out, right, if you’re diving into, like, Who is that ideal buyer? Because you want to get some momentum here. So let’s take a, let’s dive through just a few of these characteristics here. Damon, so, you know, we take a look at, like, the demographic information, age, location, family status. You know, if you’re targeting local, get real specific. Like, who you know, if you’re, if you have a ice cream stand, or, you know, whatever your your market is, get real specific. What do you want to share here?

Damon Pistulka  04:22

Yeah, I mean, the more specific you can get on this, the better you are. Because the really it takes customer understanding to do this well, and the better we understand our customers, we better understand how we provide value or why they appreciate what we do. And you can refine that and get better at it and provide more value and get more value in the heart of the customer.

Curt Anderson  04:45

That’s right. So I’m going to give a client of ours. She gave us permission to show this example. Man, I absolutely love this. This client here, she’s absolutely so let’s see share this tab. Can you see this tab? Yes, again, awesome. So this is one of our customers. Love her, dear. Lee. And, man, she rolled up her sleeves and she dove right in. And we created a couple different buyers. Okay, so we’ve got, like, you know, she’s selling this wonderful product that targets Caribbean and so she’s got, like, the Caribbean culture enthusiast. Then you come down here, she’s got, like, you know, the health conscious is kind of like a yoga mom. And then she’s got another buyer down here. And so, you know, we love bucketing those clients in a different, you know, sectors, Damon, so, like, you think about, you know, we can round out like a baseball diamond, like the singles, the doubles, the triples, of home runs. And that’s exactly what this client did, is like, she broke her, you know, who’s the consumer that’s going to buy periodically, who’s the one that’s going to buy more aggressively? And then she went all the way down to like, Who’s that B2B buyer that would really be a home run. And understanding like, what are their challenges, what are their frustrations? And how can we provide a solution or a product that just really pun intended hits a home run for that client, right? Any thoughts that you want to add there?

Damon Pistulka  05:57

Yeah, taking the time to do this really allows you to make sure that you’re addressing your best buyers properly, right? Because they there’s what, 345, of them there. You know, you can write separate content or generate separate content for each of your buyer personas. You don’t want to mix it all together. If it doesn’t co it’s not real cohesive, because, you know, the yoga mom might be different than the professional buyer. So you can create separate content that will help them. You know, when you’re meeting with one of those people, if you’re if you’re in the kind of business where you’re meeting with them, you can discuss different pain points in those meetings and really help, help to resonate with them and engage with them better in in all of your contact communication, whatever you’re doing with them, absolutely. So

Curt Anderson  06:48

let’s just, let’s run through this quickly on some of these different things. So again, if you’re in a B2B space, you know we’ve got down here, if you look in the left, you know the professional status. And one thing that we’d love to share is, you know, you’re not necessarily just, you know, we have the title and, you know, this is why this buyer persona is so important. Because we’re not just always targeting, you know, a position, right? It’s, we’re targeting a person so understanding, you know, like that person their roles, the responsibilities, who do they answer to, and what are their motivations? You know, like, here’s a great example that we’ve come across that I just love, you know, like, if we’re targeting a business owner, right? Of they have 15 employees, you know, they have a whole different set of challenges than, say, if you’re targeting a civil servant, servant who’s a buyer for you, right? The business owner is like, man, you know, like, our what’s going on with the economy, what’s going on with the world, what’s going on with 10 going on with taxes, health care, health insurance, uh, layoffs, all these other things. There’s a lot of stress on that business owner. And how do you speak to them if you’re targeting folks that maybe are civil servant or maybe somebody to in a major, large corporation, you know, maybe they’re trying to appease their boss, or maybe they’ve got budgets, or they’ve got, you know, they’re on a bonus structure that you know. So again, like understanding those specifics, what are your thoughts? It’s a big

Damon Pistulka  08:10

deal. And you know, because if you can make your customer successful, you’ll have more customers. That’s just the way it is. And you know, knowing, knowing their like you show here a key job responsibilities. Help them do a better job with in their business, with their business, and to their if they, if the case is to their bosses, make make their job easier and better. Now,

Curt Anderson  08:32

if we want to be efficient with our time, what you can absolutely do is, hey, let’s, let’s borrow some help from our friend, whatever AI tool that you’re using ChatGPT, or whatever, you know, take some of your information, your customer information, your company information, and if you’re versed on AI, your verse on ChatGPT, you can take this in here and say, hey, check create a buyer persona for Yup, right? And, you know, here’s my single here’s a person that would buy periodically, here’s a person that would, boy, just be a great customer. Here’s going to be a customer is, like, a little bit of a different level. You know? It’s funny, Damon, most of our B2B clients, it’s like they’re not necessarily looking for singles. They’re not necessarily looking for the home runs. They love those doubles and triples, yep, you know, yep. And that’s

Damon Pistulka  09:15

a good, solid customers that come around, spend a bit of money, do love what you do now, those are the ones, right?

Curt Anderson  09:22

And the more that you understand again, like that B2B buyer, whether you know government agency, whether it’s a large corporation or another small business, you know, whatever that might be, diving in and understanding, like, here we’ve got like, hey, what’s the bio of that person? Yeah, what are the frustrations? What the what motivates them. You know what? I’m dude, I’m reading a phenomenal book right now. I know you know this book well, the Go Giver, right? Yeah, go giver by Bob Berg. And just, you know, the more that I tell you I couldn’t recommend that book to more Bob. We need to get Bob Berg on the show right, and he does a phenomenal job of. Like, really, in simple steps of, like, how to be that go giver, and the more you understand your buyer persona, that soulmate, that’s how you know in does that. These aren’t my words, these are his words. It’s the path to success, right? Yeah.

Damon Pistulka  10:12

And, you know, one of the things that we rarely talk about with with the buyer persona and the digital game plan, is, it’s not just for marketing, right? It’s for operations as well, because the things that you learn by doing a really good buyer persona may help you change the way you offer your products or services, or how they’re delivered, or how, how you, you know, really interact with the customer throughout the process to make a complete, complete blue ocean opportunity for yourself, right?

Curt Anderson  10:40

I totally agree. So So again, we’ll start winding down. So we just want to do a quick little jam session on why that ideal buyer persona is so important, such a critical piece to your success. We have a free worksheet here, if this would be helpful, if, on the other hand, just jump right into ChatGPT or your favorite AI tool, and start, you know, really niche down and get a clear and concise understanding of your ideal buyer and how you can help them win. Damon, any parting thoughts, words of wisdom that you want to share today, it’s

Damon Pistulka  11:10

well worth it to take the time to understand your buyer better than you do now, if you haven’t already, that’s right,

Curt Anderson  11:16

yes, and we’ll take one step further. Maybe this will be our topic next week, understanding your buyer and understanding and if you’re in a B2B space under your customers, customer, yep, the more you understand your customer’s customer, and understand those challenges and help your customer be successful with their customer, you, my friend, will be just as successful. So, all right, we’re going to close out. We thank you everybody for joining us today. We wish you an amazing, incredible, wonderful. Rest of your week. We’ve got another great session coming up on Friday, we hope. And so hey, just keep you. Keep going out and be someone’s inspiration, just like Damon and you too will make the world a better person. So alright, guys, have a great week. God bless you. We’ll see you soon. You.