who else do you know?
Something like 11% of businesses don’t ask for referrals. I read that somewhere. I’m surprised it’s that high.
Who do you love?
There’s an untapped growth channel that I think is lurking in every Saas business’s user data. Many of us use it to run ads (lookalike audiences, y’all).
Do you ever see a customer name and sigh “I wish we had more customers like Carl. Carl pays. He never complains. I love Carl.”
So, why don’t more of us look closely at our best customers and ask “Where can I find more Carls?”
The hunt is on
I’ve been the guy who finds a Carl and spends hours building a persona around him. What I’m left with is a long Confluence page of likes, dislikes, guessed locations (it’s Saas, it sells everywhere), triggers, team sizes…
And a checklist of “places Carl hangs out online.” WTF. Seriously.
“Hey Carl, who else do you know?”
We’re taught to find the places our target customers hang out and then plant ourselves there and “be genuinely helpful.” Not bad advice, but… it takes a while.
Why not ask Carl who he hangs out with. He might introduce us to Valerie and Steve and Carl’s Jr. And then, with a first-party introduction, we’re hanging out with our ideal customers. Without lurking in Facebook and LinkedIn Groups we don’t really want to be in.
Finding more Carls
You don’t even need to know Carl personally to find him. If you run a saas company or sell an app, Carl is right there in your product usage data.
He’s done all the right things to get value from the app and he comes back often. If you calculate engagement scores, Carl would be Red Hot.
The fastest way to find Carl is to look at which companies and people are using your app and getting value from it. It’s not hard to do when you have product analytics installed.
Capture product usage data
Not all events are created equal, so assign important events/actions a weight from 1-10 (choose 10-20 events to score like this)
Multiply the number of times an event happens by the weight
Total up the score
The account or user with the highest number is your Hottest Account
Now you can find more Hot Accounts. More Carls.
Then ask them who else they know that would benefit from your product.
Happy hunting,
Peter
(464 / 500)
PS: Yes, I’m a co-founder at Accoil Analytics. This isn’t a shill. It’s a PSA for anyone selling software and not yet tracking your product engagement data. Please start. Reply to this email and I’ll help you figure out where to start.