During our recent webinar designed specifically for B2B innovators aiming at new markets, we mentioned a trick about how to think about your developing network of business contacts.
The trick is a basic “attitude-based segmentation method” if we want to sound scientific - or if practical, just a “hindsight obvious, common sense approach based on assumed trust”.
We did not have enough time to outline the model at the webinar, but it is worth a separate descriptive article anyway, so here we go.
If you want to spend only 2 minutes reading (“TLDR”), just read the “Attitude-based Segments” chapter.
How to use that in communication -> last chapter, “Segment-focused Communication”.
The rest of the article leads you through the whole context: what is the underlying problem with B2B scaling and how to actually execute such a segmentation. Of course, for full understanding, we suggest the original story order.
The area that excites us most at AbilityMatrix is the commercial scalability of higher-value B2B innovations.
Just to keep everything defined:
So let’s assume you have a new solution, maybe even a few clients already - what are the perceived blockers before scaling into (new) markets?
That is usually recognised quickly: the right network is not yet available to show the product to and initiate sales.
Many innovators have hopes that this could be overcome quickly by big partnerships, conference attendance, piggybacking networks, cold campaigns… which is true to some extent, but the reality in the higher-value world is that building the right long-term connection network is slow, takes time and effort, and particularly not straightforward when pivots also happen.
Usually teams end up with a few successful sales AND a bunch of connections in various “status” - some in sort of presales, some exposed to marketing, some “ecosystem players”.
Sales requires both trust (or the people) and education (of the product & people).
Briefly, or with other words: a reputation.
We see many times innovators struggling on new markets: it is not obvious (at all) to transfer reputation from one market to another. Whether language, culture or physical distance, it is annoying that what you have to step back in “sales efficiency” - simply because people do not know you (yet).
Reputation building requires repetitions, education, third-party validation, showing up… before sales.
If you have a truly innovative solution… I guarantee you there is NO budget for it in the ongoing financial year! You might get lucky every now and then with a reserve or reallocated budget, but large organisations prefer to focus on problems that are known to be solvable and not a probable dead end.
Lack of budgets is already a challenge at most “sales approaches” - your future clients are simply not ready to buy and shape transactions.
Moreover: at such an early (scaling) stage, ideal customer profiles may also change.
Maybe the appropriate budget for the new problem will be allocated to the CIO rather than purely business.
Maybe you realise it is time to change track on the new market, looking for other roles and industry types.
So you need a different approach (again) when coming to the sales funnel, and you need to be flexible enough to change directions.
We recommend a simple segmentation model that assumes the trust and education level (“attitude”) of your connections.
The model includes only 4 key segments. You can visualise those as concentric circles, as your connections are getting closer to validating and/or making business with you.
The attitude-based segments and their description:
The outer circle is the (blue) ocean of undiscovered ideal customers and partners. Groups you defined on the pitch decks, people you would love to get in touch with - but actually you do not have yet any direct connections, no opportunities to speak with them, to make yourself shown.
You can assume they have zero understanding of your business, no trust developed either.
These are the people that fit a loose definition of “business-relevant ecosystem of yours” AND you are somehow connected already.
Maybe via LinkedIn. Maybe newsletters. Maybe emails. Maybe a good old phonebook.
You can assume they know something about you (at least theoretically CAN see you), but not enough trust (yet) to for example recommend you. You already exist, but no deeper intention to cooperate - unless something relevant emerges.
Two types of background in that segment:
i) People who considered working with you BUT for any reason decided not to (point: they have understood your proposal).
ii) People who like you, react to your communication (eg, comment, like and share your LinkedIn posts), bring new prospects, even former colleagues and partners.
The close network trusts you, they validate you for others, also quite educated about your business - but not necessarily gone through the whole procurement and delivery process. They did not read your contracts, which is another level of understanding. :)
They are still your very important “ambassadors”, for example, in consulting the majority of new leads are passing through such 3rd parties. An asset to develop and build on.
Well, the innermost circle of your environment is the group that already bought from you at some point of time: buyers fully understand what your business is, who you are, how you conduct - and also reached the level of trust to invest money and effort into your solution. Educated and trusting, you do not need to start communicating from scratch.
Two caveats for this group, though:
i) You might already have a few “bad clients”, wrong chemistry, etc - just exclude them
ii) Insiders, aka “other people involved in your commercial projects” may also be included in this group.
The greatest practical challenge of most segmentation models is how exactly we can decide who belongs to which segment. We need to find characteristics that can be recognised relatively easily.
Bad news: this attitude-based segmentation requires human work. YOUR human work, more specifically. There are some distinguishing characteristics (more about that in a minute), but not general enough to be built into a fully automated algorithm.
Information that helps classification:
In our experience, CRM information can serve as a good enough starting point to build the draft lists, but requires human consideration, especially if you want to get close to 100% accuracy.
Good news: the inner circles at this growth stage are not enormous lists. The important part is to distinguish the close & loose connections, so we can communicate in a way that has a higher chance to be heard.
As our own AbilityMatrix example we identified about ~300 individuals that really know and trust us, while our relevant loose connections are in the ~5-10k range. Try it yourself, structuring even a few hundred connections, thinking about your relationship with them is NOT a hopeless exercise when you plan to scale into a new market.
Why the effort?
Your primary communication goals are different when approaching individuals in different segments.
Blue Ocean: the ambition is to get connected, in order to open up the opportunity to communicate and help find relevant talking points. Key channels are networking events, speaking opportunities, direct LinkedIn approaches, 3rd party introductions.
Loose network: the primary goal is to build reputation - trust and education, as mentioned earlier. General information and content about events, speaking opportunities, problems solved, milestones and successes. We also suggest a delicate balance between staying relevant and still trying to reach out to accelerate relationship building.
Close network: the primary goal is to keep them informed about your actual context, like you would chat with a friend. Ongoing and future activities, “wanted” opportunities, partnerships, concepts, expansion and communication plans… Directions and problems that might be relevant for those individuals AND their network.
Buyers: actually, buyers and close network can be pretty close to each other in mindset, a slight distinguishment is the potential openness about offers and ideas. Apart from the usual “upsell” opportunities, we advise involving relevant current or past buyers when testing new concepts, or even new communication formats.
In reality, communication is never sterile, so unless a very direct and targeted campaign is planned, you face a double question: to whom the message may be most relevant - and which segments we should just exclude to keep clarity.
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Interested in more innovation go-to-market tips? Do you have a different opinion? Perhaps a relevant problem you would like to chat about? Follow us on LinkedIn and let’s get in touch!
