My second startup was in high-tech manufacturing. We have core technology, products nationwide investment, and a small part of direct sales, aimed at direct users. Our company's major customers mainly include the following four categories:
Users become big merchants (big customers). Our largest provincial-level businessmen (with an advance payment of 10 million), as well as a number of provincial-level city merchants and prefecture-level city merchants, are all converted from direct users, and they are all inter-bank entrants. From the second year onwards, these large customers account for 30-50% of the company's overall sales.
Large merchants recommended by small merchants. We encourage and reward merchants to "invest in business", and some merchants have joined us as a result. Most of the merchants who are recommended to join this part are businesses in the industry, mainly small and medium-sized businesses, and occasionally one or two large businesses. Because the big businesses in the industry often have big brands that have cooperated for many years, they have very high requirements for the products, functions, services, channels, brands, and promotions of new brands, and they will not be promoted vigorously and wholeheartedly in the early stage. Of course, as we develop better and better, the number and quality of large businesses recommended to come in are getting higher and higher, and they are more willing to invest more manpower, material resources and energy to promote us; But in the early stage, we can't expect much, and these large customers account for 5-10% of the company's overall sales in the early stage.
A friend of a friend becomes our big customer. The founders, shareholders, and partners all have a group of good friends, and these friends have not become our big customers (or even most of them are not our customers), but many of these friends have become our big customers. "Acquaintances don't want to pay for us; But in order to show off their knowledge and the strength of their circle of friends, acquaintances may also have some guilt and a helping mentality, so acquaintances are willing to promote for us in their circle of friends. And acquaintances' friends, many of them are general, wine and meat friends, interest friends, anyway, they don't have too deep interests in each other, but they are just willing to believe in these 'strange acquaintances', and feel that these acquaintances recommend super good projects, so they entrust friends to find the company, and then become our cooperative customers"! This kind of large customers are all from across the bank, and they have strong financial strength, accounting for 20-40% of the company's overall sales in the initial stage; However, because it is a cross-bank and does not actually use the product, many people enter with the mentality of making quick money, so after 1-2 years, about 50% will choose to quit. The big customers who stay will become loyal fans and core partners of the company!
4. Take the initiative to find large customers who come to the door. Many customers come to the door through industry exhibitions, forums and summits, ** reports, or 400**, WeChat official website, etc., and most of them belong to small and medium-sized customers. Comparatively speaking, customers obtained through more high-end places such as forums and summits are more likely to become large customers, and such large customers are often direct customers (non-partners) who sign orders directly with the company. The quality of this kind of large customer is very high, because it is a direct customer, and it takes the initiative to find it, and it is very recognized by the company's products and technology, and this kind of large customer is often a very large system customer. For example, a real estate company, a central enterprise, or a bank, if you cooperate with the first order, there may be a large number of orders coming in the future! The proportion of such large customers in the company's overall sales will have a climbing and stabilizing stage, and they need to be carefully serviced.
Startups have to have big customers. The proportion of sales of large customers is more than 50-80% of the company's overall sales, of course, some companies that focus on C-end retail, the proportion of sales of large customers is relatively low.
How do startups find big customers? There are three ways to do this:
1. Do a good job of publicity. Let customers come to the door. Exhibition forum, official website, new, traditional advertising, advertising and other media comprehensive use. Considering that the start-up company has less money and less advertising investment, we will recommend more exhibition forums + new ** + circle of friends publicity. Let friends of friends become our big customers, and let all kinds of large, medium and small customers take the initiative to find us through **!
2. Pay attention to seed users. Less but finer. Let users become merchants (large households), and let small and medium-sized businesses help recommend referrals, we are more focused.
3. Do a good job in front-end products and back-end services. Satisfy customers (including users) and form a good reputation and reputation; In this process, we continue to iterate products, improve processes, strengthen services, do a good job in communication, lay a solid foundation, and build a team!