Every executive I speak wants to see growth in their businesses. Growth drives revenue, it provides funding for new product or market development, which in turn drives more growth.
As sales and marketing professionals, it’s our responsibility to identify and pursue those growth opportunities. But we miss so much!
Matt Heinz referenced Gartner data in a recent LinkedIn post. It ‘s a provocative post, call this one “jumping on Matt’s bandwagon.”
The first interesting data point is: In looking at our addressable markets, at any one time, only 3-4% are active buyers.
Some might view this as very small, but it’s really a representation of the enormity of the economy. Every year, trillions of dollars (or your currency of choice) are exchanged in companies making purchases.
But there’s a huge argument that it could be and should be much more! Yet we aren’t seizing it.
The first lost opportunity is that we know, from the same Gartner research, that more than 50% of buying journeys end in “no decision made.” These are customers that intend to buy, to spend money, but fail to reach a buying decision.
What this means, is that if 3-4 % of customers are active buyers, less than 50% of them actually buy. Stated differently, our economies and markets are being driven by only 1.5-2% of the customers in our addressable markets.
We have the potential of doubling our business (and the market economy), if we help more buyers succeed in their buying journeys! The reality, is we can never get to a 100% success rate, but imagine what would happen if we captured only an additional 0.5% of the customers that are in the market to buy. This could drive as much as 30% growth!
Matt, also cites data that says, as much as 46% of the customers in our target markets are “poised to buy.” They just don’t recognize the opportunity to improve or the need to change. But this represents a huge loss on their parts (capturing growth). To capture a part of this market, we have to get the customer to think about their businesses differently. We have to help them discover the cost of inaction and incent them to change.
Imagine just capturing 1% of the customers that are are poised to buy, helping them understand why they may want to change. This opportunity is immense–worth trillions! Remember, we are only capturing 1.5-2% of the target market–which drives trillions in purchasing. Adding an additional 1% is enormous!
Largely, what I am doing is a discussion of simple mathematics. But what it demonstrates is the potential active market opportunity is far larger than what we capture. Yet we seem to focus on just that 1.5.2% of the addressable market, competing with everyone else for that opportunity, often doing unnatural acts and unnecessary discounting.
Imagine if we started looking at the broader market and the opportunity it presents.
The limitations to growth are largely due to how we address and manage the opportunity, and less issues of markets and economies.
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