This Is The Bait Marketing Market
The SMB Technology Market Segment (SMBTMS), for purposes of Bait Marketing, is businesses that are less than $50 million in revenue and fewer than 250 employees.
This segment exists because buyers and sellers exchange on the net positive value of technology.
The value promise for this segment is the financial advantage technology provides – “quality of time.” The value promise is either production gain and increased revenue, or increased efficiency by reducing cost and eliminating expense. Improving business in financially measurable ways is this segment’s Monetized Value Proposition (MVP).
The SMBTMS is laid out in four quadrants: Operational or Production technology types, and Non-technical buyers or Technology buyers.
Operational and Production technology types are distinguished from each other by the role technology plays in the revenue generation cycle for each company.
- Operational: Technology is not imbedded in the revenue production of company products or services. These companies are general–purpose technology users with non-technical buyers.
- Production: Technology is imbedded in the revenue production of company products or services. These companies are specific technology users who are technology buyers.
Technology buyers are distinguished from Non-technical buyers by larger revenue, and more executive wherewithal, technical expertise, and sufficient budget over time. But Non-technical buyers make up 90% of the SMBTMS!
Non-technical buyers need leadership while Technology buyers want strategic partnerships.
Business drivers for both Non-technical and Technology-buyers are more cash, customers, and credit.
The buying dynamics for both Non-technical and Technology buyers are the same:
- target market: interest, listening, personal
- target customer: attention, looking, company
- target persona: attraction, learning, lucrative
- messaging key: listening, looking, and learning for more cash, customers, and credit
Non-technical buyers: Due to their smaller revenue size and CapEx limitations, most SMB companies are Non-technical buyers who don’t understand the strategic value of technology.
Non-technical buyers have a poor facility with technology, have no technical expertise, no specified budget, and harbor a latent agitation towards technology and technology sellers. But they do need technology.
Non-technical buyers are reluctant buyers who are ignorant of the strategic value of technology to improve their business. An MVP must be generated before Non-technical buyers can see the strategic value of technology for more cash, customers, and credit.
Non-technical buyer motivators are: lowest cost with discounts, inducements, and peer buyer references.
Non-technical buyers:
- Make up over 90% of the SMBTMS
- Less than $50 million in revenue
- Broadest target market
- No technology budgets
- Cost conscious
- Make only tactical general service purchases; buy low and slow
- Undifferentiated from a technology point of view
- C-level owner as buyer
- Seeks Leadership
- MVP motivate purchase
Technology buyers: Because of the economics of large company revenue, technology buyers welcome technical sales insights and actively look for them. They have sufficient executive wherewithal, technical expertise, and a sufficient budget over time.
Technology buyer motivators are: niche/specific, details that lead to value, reputation, with MVP and expectations of ROI based on specified business drivers.
Technology buyers:
- Are 10% of the SMB technology segment
- 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 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
“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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