In conclusion of the Buyer 2.0 series, what must be examined is the glue that binds the previous tenets that have been reviewed. Otherwise, we can end up what may be viewed as disparate and disconnected uses for buyer personas. Thus, diluting the essence of how they can help an organization receive the game-changing affects from investing in Buyer Persona 2.0 best practices.
Buyer Personas Inform Strategy and Innovation
The binding purpose for the tenets discussed as well as for the next generation of Buyer Personas is that Buyer Persona 2.0 serves the purpose of informing senior leaders on strategy and innovation. Buyer Personas provide senior leaders with qualitative-based insights that helps bring to life the quantitative-based, and sometimes often over-emphasized, analytical insight.
Visual Thinking
I recently finished reading Einstein: His Life and Universe by Walter Isaccson and what surprised me profoundly is how Einstein relied on first pondering a visual of the problem before he dove into the analytical aspects of physics and math. He essentially viewed the problem and tried to solve it in his head first. For example, he pondered the visual of what it would be like to travel alongside a light beam. Buyer Personas, as defined in my previous posts, can provide senior executives with the visual view of the market that helps them to acquire the necessary insight needed to shape business strategy (inclusive of sales and marketing) and to discover paths of innovation the organization can pursue.
Insight into the Unknown
For many executives, especially those who have tenured years of experience, entrance into a buyer-centric world could feel like entering the Twilight Zone. Strategies, tactics, practices and knowledge of buyers once predictable now appear as a discomforting unknown. Outcomes once explainable are no longer explainable. Buyer Persona 2.0, as defined with all of its elements of the investigative process, can provide senior strategists with a window to the changing world of buyers. Allowing executive to take a qualitative view necessary to understand and assess the implications of the dynamic changes happening before them.
A Roadmap
Over the past few years, we’ve seen the growing use of GPS systems in automobiles today. They’ve evolved from purely directional navigation to offering very colorful guidance that will get you to where you want to go. Buyer Personas has evolved over the past decade by paying adherence to the fundamental principles of persona creation while at the same time evolving into an effective guide for senior executives to gain the critical buyer insight needed to navigate in a buyer-centric world. By providing the qualitative overlay to the analytical, organizations can be informed on strategies and paths to innovation that can be difficult to roadmap just on an analytical approach only. Buyer Persona 2.0 is a roadmap for organizations to develop strategies that will give them a competitive advantage by getting closer to the customer and their buyers.
Puzzle Pieces
What senior executives strive for and are held accountable for is their ability to predict and anticipate. Have you ever tried to put together a puzzle without having the picture on the puzzle box? Not an easy task but possible. It is bound to take you at least two or three times longer than if you had the picture to begin with. In many ways, this is how senior executives, selling organizations, and marketing organizations operate today. Continuously using existing as well as building new puzzle pieces of strategies yet not having a very clear picture of how and why they fit together. I am sure creating a bevy of sweaty palms as they prepare to provide a forecast of future earnings before a senior management team, board of directors, and some very nervous investors.
Buyer Persona 2.0, as a discipline and practice, can help senior executives and organizations to navigate the turbulent waters of an unstable marketplace. This navigational power is where competitive advantages can be gained and breakthrough strategies and innovations can occur.