This is a slightly edited version of my answer to the following question on Quora:
This question reminds me of a Patek Philippe ad in which the luxury Swiss watchmaker says, “You never actually own a Patek Philippe. You merely look after it for the next generation”. The tagline of the ad is “Begin your own tradition”.
I’m tempted to paraphrase Patek Philippe in my answer: “You never actually find a customer. You merely look after a prospect for the next stage of the funnel”. And end with the following tagline: “Begin your own campaign”.
Just that the process of finding a customer is arguably harder than taking care of a luxury watch for the next generation.
With that preamble out of the way, the only place where you, as a vendor of a B2B technology product or service, can find customers is in your list of existing customers.
Everywhere else you can only find target audience. Which is not the same as finding customers.
It’s extremely important to appreciate the distinction between members of target market and customers.
In most areas of B2B technology products and services – including B2B SAAS – a vendor needs to work on around 200 members in the target market to acquire one customer. So it’s a smart move to avoid using the two terms “target audience” and “customer” interchangeably.
Your search to acquire that one customer begins by finding those 200 people in your target market.
After finding them, you need to take them through the various stages of the sales funnel, as illustrated in the following exhibit.
As a vendor, you need to respond differently at each stage.
When all goes well, 200 prospects at the top of the funnel will yield one customer at the bottom of the funnel.
Happy Selling!
