Whet the Appetite

As a new business development manager—developing leads and business for Transmyt Marketing—I have been asked, and must honestly ask myself: Who am I targeting?

It's important for me to be able to articulate who I'm targeting, and have a clear vision of who our ideal client is. If I understand who my target is, I can help my referral network to understand.

At a recent BNI meeting our presenter supported this premise by suggesting that we refine our 45 second schpeal to increase the instances and quality of referrals. Before her presentation, I might have said "an ideal referral for me would be anyone who is in need of full-service marketing support." Who comes to mind? Anyone?

To best leverage my referral network, I need to remove vague terms like "anyone," "small businesses" and "full-service" and replace them with more specific descriptors.

Because of my professional background, I think one of my strongest niches might actually end up being accounting and professional service firms. Thus, an ideal referral for me would be someone in the Accounting industry, more specifically within a CPA firm, the marketing director or partner, at Doe CPAs PC, Jane Doe, Managing Partner. Do you know Jane Doe or someone that can introduce me to her? If you don't know Jane, are you thinking of people like Jane that you can introduce me to?

Now, this schpeal may change weekly, or depending on who I'm talking to, but I can increase my referral success by having someONE specific in mind when asked.