What is Lead Prioritization and How to do it
When you decide to go outside and do problem interviews, you can talk to several types of leads. Remember that time in a startup is the risk factor to minimize, and therefore you should focus on talking to the kind of potential client that is least expensive to find. This tool helps you to order who to interview considering a series of variables for it.
When to Use Lead Prioritization?
A startup’s success is measured by its ability to attract a specific customer segment quickly to achieve early traction. If you look at the Adoption Curve of Innovation, you will understand that it costs much less to attract early adopters or first clients than any other type of segment.
You can identify these potential first customers because:
- They know they have a problem and understand that it is a significant problem.
- You are actively searching for a solution, and are concerned with the time to find it.
- They have a way to partially or provisionally solve the problem. That is, the problem is so “painful” that they have built a partial solution.
- They have a budget. That is, they are willing to pay for a solution (and even an intermediate solution.)
Steps to Implement Lead Prioritization:
When an entrepreneur starts to think about all these, surely they can think of several types of people to talk, and since you can not spend your life doing problem interviews, it is interesting to prioritize which segment we go first.
It is useful to classify the different types taking into account the following criteria:
1. Size:
An estimate of the size of the segment in a qualitative way. Assign a value of 1 to those groups of people who not very large, a 2 to those of medium size, and a 3 to the largest.
2. Payment capacity or pain level:
If the client pays for the solution’s use, you will have to assess their payment capacity. But if you want to launch something free for someone, you will have to evaluate the level of “pain” or pain of the problem for him. Assign the values of 1, 2, and 3 for low, medium, and high standards, respectively.
3. Assess:
Assess your ability to get close to talking to that type of person. For example, if they are presidents of companies, they are probably quasi-inaccessible, but if they are young people in their twenties, surely in college, you can talk to a lot. Again it values with 1, 2, and 3 for low, medium, and high levels, respectively.
4. Total:
Multiply the previous columns; you will see that some of the groups will have a much higher value. Head over to this first.
Example of criteria you can use to select the group of people to talk to first. Note: The reference values at the bottom of the table are an order of magnitude
5. Tips:
Now all that remains is to go outside! And talk to those leads, do not hesitate, and do it as soon as possible.
Understand your customer archetypes.
Client archetypes are just a “cool” way of saying the detailed description of client information: who they are, their age, the role they play or their job position, the characteristics of tastes and lifestyle habits, who have influenced them, what are their motivations, etc.
This information is used to understand how to attract and retain them. There are tools such as the person profile to describe customer archetypes. But until you go out on the street, you will not discover the keys to yours.
Focus on Jobs to be done.
The adoption of a product is directly proportional to the understanding of the task that the customer is trying to do or the problems that he is trying to solve (or “Jobs to be done” or “Customer Jobs”).
Use the Value Offer Canvas or the Value Proposition Canvas to discover this key.
The Customer Decision-Making Unit (DMU).
As you go deeper into the analysis of the customer segment you are targeting, other types of actors will emerge that can influence your product or service’s adoption.
Above all, if your business model is B2B, it is interesting to note that you identify yourself as soon as possible to the client’s Decision-making unit or Decision-making unit (DMU).
