Validate Your Sales and Marketing Plan by Meeting Potential Customers

ValidateYourSalesandMarketing

This past week I spent some time listening to 5 aspiring entrepreneurs present their planned businesses as part of Ryerson Startmeup at the Ryerson DMZ. There were great ideas that were part of the presentation, but in many cases, they are ideas without any validation by potential customers. Validating will help many components of your marketing and sales strategy, and this is true for both business to business (B2B) and business to consumer (B2C. Here are a few tips that can help you validate your B2B business idea:

1. Find Potential Customers

Utilize friends, colleagues, classmates, or anyone that could be your target customer. For B2B products and solutions, LinkedIn is a great way to find the right people you are connected with and also hidden 2nd connections. Are there networking events that you could attend that would have a large number of prospective customers?
 

2. The Problem

Is the problem you are trying to fix or solve an actual problem? Validate the issues potential customers may be having as a result of the problem.
 

3. The Benefit

Is the benefit of the solution you plan to provide significant enough for potential customers to want to try it?  For B2B solutions, the solution should help reduce expenses, increase revenue, improve productivity, or avoid something bad.
 

4. Competition

Who are your competitors?  What are their strengths and weaknesses?
 

5. Pricing

How much would they be willing to pay?  What pricing models are used in the space?

Validation should not happen just before you launch your product, but should be an ongoing process as you start to sell and market. There will be new target verticals, problems, competitors, and pricing models to explore as you grow your business. Keep learning and always ask questions. If you are interested to learn more about sales and marketing plans, download our free white papers.
 

Validate Your Sales and Marketing Plan by Meeting Potential Customers