Finding Opportunities in Purchasing Data
Recently I conducted an analysis of purchasing data for a technology reseller. They had a very efficient operation going, with customers self-serving through e-commerce. After an initial analysis I found that there were several customers that had purchased over $50,000 worth of server licenses and one with over $100K in orders, all in one fiscal year. These were individual purchases at a price point averaging $2,500 each so they flew under the radar, but in aggregate they added up to significant revenue. And no one in the company was talking with them.
After a little digging I found out that all of these clients were in the same industry. Which led to the inflection point question: “What was going on in that industry to drive these customers to purchase server licenses?”
Armed with these insights, company leadership asked the Marketing team to call these customers to learn more (there was no sales team since they were strictly e-commerce). They also instructed IT to set up a weekly sales report that would identify clients with total sales exceeding $6,000 in a given fiscal year, this way marketing can reach out and start a conversation.
A simple 2-hour analysis provided the insights to make incremental changes to the standard operating procedures, potentially adding more revenue to the business.
How Diapers Changed the Sales Conversation
I was working at a business intelligence firm that sold data on fast moving consumer goods, both value and volume, across 200 countries. I was part of a new batch of sales reps. The typical sales cold call would involve something along the lines of: “We have a database with market sizes on consumer products, do you have any need for market data?”. Needless to say, the answer was almost always “No!”.
I came up with an inflection point question: Do we have any hidden insights in our data that can tell an interesting story? I took it upon myself to assemble a massive spreadsheet with historical and forecast data across all consumer segments in all 200 countries. At the time our database did not show both historical and forecast in one view so putting this data together was a big task. After some initial analysis I uncovered an interesting story. Historical data showed that diaper sales in a region in Latin America had increased by a significant CAGR, almost like a hockey stick, then plateaued to present day. There was a region in Eastern Europe that had a similar trend, with recent historical data trending up and a forecast that would continue for a few more years into the future. Almost a mirror image of Latin America.
I researched companies in the baby product space and I formulated a new sales pitch that went something like this: “There was a baby boom in Latin America, you weren’t there. There’s a similar baby boom happening in Eastern Europe, and you’re not there either but you can be. Would you like to see the data?”. Losses loom larger than gains. No one wanted to miss a growth opportunity. I made plenty of sales.
Management saw the value in this approach and created a Value Proposition Design Team that would comb through our own data and create market specific value props, sales call scripts, and marketing collateral.