Non-technical buyers make up 90% of the SMB Technology Market. Their purchase motivation is always for more cash, customer & credit.
The SMB Target Market for Technology Buyers (SMB) is $5.2 Billion and is made up of the target market, target customer, and target meta persona for buyers, providers, and technology.
The SMB buyer’s interest in technology is always for more cash, customers, and profit. Buyers are always interested in ways to get more cash, customers, and profitability because they are essential to compete with larger competitors for the same customer.
Buyers progress naturally in their persona from interest, attention, to attraction in the interest of more cash, customers, and profit:
- Target Market: interest, listening, personal
- Target Customer: attention, looking, company
- Target Persona: attraction, learning, lucrative
- Target Curious Meta Persona: the Fascinated, the Problem Solver, the Empathizer
1. Target Market: interest, listening, personal
The SMB is businesses making less than $100 million in annual revenue with less than 1000 employees. The target market elements are buyers, providers, and technology.
The target market exists because of the positive impact on the bottom line from technology providers known as the monetized value proposition (MVP). Specifically:
- Technology promises more revenue for a better today and a greater tomorrow known as quality of time.
- Service Providers promise cost and expense reduction from best practice service value.
(Technology “Quality of Time” + Service Provider “Service Value” = Monetized Value Proposition)
The combination of more revenue and lower cost is important to the provider for the buyer to know because its value interest motivates buyer behavior.
2. Target Customer: attention, looking, company
The target customer has four quadrants: operational or production technology types, and non-technical or technology buyers.
Operational and production technology types are distinguished from each other by the role technology plays in the revenue generation cycle of the business. For instance:
- Operational: Technology is not embedded in the revenue production of company products or services. Operational types are general–purpose technology users with non-technical buyers.
- Production: Technology is embedded in the revenue production of the company products or services. Production types are specific technology users who are technology buyers.
Generally, operational types are non-technical buyers, and production types are technology buyers, but not always.
3. Target Persona(s): attraction, learning, lucrative
There are two types of target persona: non-technical and technology buyers.
Non-technical buyers make up 90% of the $5.2 billion SMB technology market segment. But due to their smaller revenue size and CapEx limitations, most SMB companies don’t understand the value of technology.
Non-technical buyers have a poor facility with technology, have limited technical expertise, no IT budget. They are suspicious of the cost and complexity and often harbor a latent irritation towards technology sellers.
Because non-technical buyers are mostly ignorant of the financial value of technology to improve their bottom line, showing them the monetized value proposition of technology motivates their interest in more cash, customers, and profit.
Non-technical buyer purchase motivators are the lowest price with discounts, inducements, and peer buyer endorsement.
Non-technical buyer demographic:
- Makeup over 90% of the SMB
- Less than $50 million in revenue
- Broadest target market
- No technology budgets
- Cost-conscious
- Make only tactical technology service purchases; buy low and slow
- Undifferentiated from a technology point of view
- C level owner as the buyer
- Seeks Leadership
- MVP motivate purchase
Technology buyers are distinguished from non-technical buyers with more revenue, Executive wherewithal, technical expertise, and average IT budgets over time.
Because of their larger company size technology buyers welcome technical sales insights and actively look for them. Technology buyers look for strategic relationships.
Technology buyer purchase motivators are specific details that lead to value, reputation, proof, and expectations of return on investment with specified business drivers.
Technology buyer demographic:
- Are 10% of the SMB
- More than $10 million in revenue
- Niche target customer
- Expressed Budget
- Pronounced business case drivers with technical specifications and research with RFQ request
- Enterprise purpose-built technology
- Profitable
- Manager influences purchase
- Looking for contributive technology partners who have the process, support, partnership, ROI
- Want a better company valuation, leadership from strategic partners, and ROI on technology and MVP to affirm expectations and influence upselling
4. Target Curious Meta Persona: the Fascinated, the Problem Solver, the Empathizer
Most buyers don’t recognize they need a technology service and don’t know how to order or search for them.
Interest is the key to consistent growth regardless of industry or buyer. If you need attention to sell your product or service interest motives behavior.
Providers must create a way for buyers to discover your value for themselves to create interest when value isn’t obvious to the buyer.
Curiosity is a fundamental human motivation that motivates behavior. The elements of curiosity are simultaneous interest and warranted attention combined as interest value.
Curiosity can be combined into meaningful profiles to capture the heterogeneity of distinct types of curious people: the Fascinated, the Problem Solver, and the Empathizer.
Importantly these profiles predict how to affect attitudes, values, and use of money and time and interest, attention, and attraction toward a valued goal.
| Curiosity Scale | 3 Curious Personas | Curious Meta Persona | Message example | Characteristic | Values | Attitudes | Passions/Expertise |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Joyous Exploration | Fascinated | highly educated, financially successful, extraverted, social justice, romance. Lots of attentions, energy and finances on magazines and websites. Strong social following and contacts learning and growing | “what impact will it make” “how big a difference will it have” “what and how questions” | pleasure in options and discovery | independence and romance | im in touch with my emotions | politics, travel, sports, technology, fashion, finance, social media |
| Deprivation Sensitivity | Problem Solvers | intellecually engaged, abstract and complex thinking, seek information to close gaps in knowledge, cognition and epistemic curiostiy, discomfort in not knowing- urge to reduce tension of not knowing learning and growing | "we have the answer you’re looking for” “the solution is here” “we have your answers." “find the tips, tricks and secrets here.” "kpi, best practice" | pressure from production to find answers | independence | my life is under control | politics, travel, sports, technology, fashion, finance |
| Stress Tolerance | Empathizers | People scoring high on Stress Tolerance were less deterred by doubt, confusion, and other forms of distress when exploring new places, and willing to embrace the inherent anxiety of a new, unexpected, complex, mysterious, obscure event. | "common facts" "standards" "logic" | references as proof of product | status | I handle difficult situations | politics, travel, sports, technology, fashion, finance, social media |
Summary:
- Interest is the key to consistent growth regardless of industry or buyer.
- Providers must create a way for buyers to discover your value for themselves to create interest when value isn’t obvious to the buyer.
- Non-technical buyers make up over 90% of the SMB
- Curiosity is a fundamental human motivation that motivates behavior.
- Bait Marketing is specifically designed to sell technology services to SMB buyers
- Bait Marketing fundamentally changes the buying dynamic.
“Nothing happens until a sale is made.” Thomas Watson, Sr., President of IBM from 1914 to 1956, coined this expression. He knew what he was talking about. Selling technology in the first half of the twentieth century, before the moon landing in 1969, was not an easy sale to make. Companies then, like many still today, did not understand the transformational power of technology to reshape industry and company fortunes.
What is a “sale” and how is it made? A sale is made when a buyer and seller agree to exchange values. The customer’s value is revenue, but what is your value to the customer? It’s not your price.
New sales are the lifeblood of every business, but not every business knows that yet. Without predictable new sales year over year, no matter how well intended a company’s mission or goals, the company will suffer with limited growth. New sales breathe life into all other company possibilities.
How to attract new customers year over year is the seminal question every business must solve first if it wants to maximize its value proposition and reach its potential.
Technology companies must monetize their value proposition to make more business. A company’s value proposition is the monetized value of its service or product to the customer - “your value.” If you don’t know the monetized value of your value proposition to your prospect, neither does he.
Sales are the problem, sales are the answer, sales are the point. Monetize your value proposition to make more sales and grow your business at scale.
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