👨‍🎓 SIBG Pt. 1.3 - The Importance of a Goto Market Strategy

Trainings >> Stages and Ingredients of Business Growth >> 1.3 Goto Market Strategy

Of course it's real nice when you figure out who your ideal buyer is.

And it's just lovely when you figure out your USP, and you know with certainty why people choose you over someone else.

But when you're setting up your business and your marketing, a customer and avatar and a USP aren't enough.

You also need to have a method for getting in front of those people, engaging with them, and creating clients out of the opportunities you generate.

In other words:

You need a goto-market strategy.

Because hey, people aren't going to come and kick down your door, just because you figured out the who and the why.

No, you also need to figure out the how.

And that means, you'll need to create a simple process that gets you in front of the right people.

There's a lot that goes into building a go-to market strategy, and there are many - MANY! - different ways to do it, but it it's core, you need to create the following results:

• Become visible to your ideal buyer
• Put a message in front of them that says: "I have this solution, for that kind of buyer. Are you that kind of buyer?"
• Incentivise that right buyer to engage with you
• Educate them on why they should or shouldn't buy your solution
• Ask them for the sale

Obviously, you can do that in millions of ways - from cold outreach on LinkedIn, to running ads to a landing page and an email campaign to your subscribers, to posting on social media or going on a podcast tour.

Too many options to dive in here, but below are some basic rules of thumb, to make it easier and more efficient:

When you're in the Set Up stage, be careful not to 'let the money work for you'.

It can be tempting to buy ads or hire an agency to drum up leads - but since you're figuring out how to make things work, that could be a very costly mistake.

What if you're not clear on your USP yet, or your messaging, or your ideal buyer?

All that money you spend could well go to waste, if you spend it too soon.

Instead:

Let your brain do the work

Meaning: remember that you're in a research-phase, so you're testing out messaging and targeting, and you need to carefully and thoughtfully review and analyse how well your hypotheses map to reality.

Build learning into your process

This follows on from the above:

The best way to build and develop a goto market strategy is by making sure that each action, each result and each reply, inform you about the validity and accuracy of your hypothesis.

That way, your strategy becomes stronger and more efficient, each step of the way.

And sure, that can mean running ads - but if you do, make sure you build in A/B tests, so that you get actual hard data on what works and what doesn't.

Aim for conversations

Every sale happens in the context of a conversation.

Sometimes that's a direct conversation between you and a buyer, and sometimes that's the conversation your buyer has in their own mind, as they wonder whether or not to click the 'buy now' button.

So your goal when building a go to market strategy, is to either have more conversations with people, or to find ways to 'join the conversation going on in the buyer's mind'.

When a qualified buyer opts out, ask them why

The biggest mistake you can make when someone tells you "No" to your offer, is to end the conversation.

This person engaged with you, right? They have a problem, and they want to solve it... but they chose not to?

Then unless the reason is 'no budget', you would do well to ask them what made it a no.

When you do, you'll learn what was missing in your messaging, or your offer, or in what way your targeting was off.

Of course, all this is very top-level, and fairly abstract. If you get what's being said here, but if you have questions, feel free to send an email to Martin and he'll do his best to help out.

Otherwise, let's dive into the next part of the training: 🧑‍🎓 The Grow Up Stage