From Seth Godin’s blog today:

Three things you need if you want more customers

If you want to grow, you need new customers. And if you want new customers, you need three things:

1. A group of possible customers you can identify and reach.
2. A group with a problem they want to solve using your solution.
3. A group with the desire and ability to spend money to solve that problem.

You’d be amazed at how often new businesses or new ventures have none of these. The first one is critical, because if you don’t have permission, or knowledge, or word of mouth, you’re invisible.

The Zune didn’t have #2.

A service aimed at creating videos for bestselling authors doesn’t have #1.

And a counseling service helping people cut back on Big Mac consumption doesn’t have #3.

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I want to add a bit more to Number 2, just for added clarity, if I can be so un-humble in thinking I can add anything to Seth’s posts.

The ONLY reason someone buys anything is that they are suffering some kind of pain in their current situation. This does not mean that they are sitting around thinking “Boy, my current MP-3 player hurts my ears, I must need Zune.” Great advertising and marketing can help organizations create this pain in their prospects. That, and great sales people who are adept at asking great questions. “Pain” can be something as simple as not being in a group or community of certain users,….or something that can be developed with good questions by the sales rep that ends with something like, “Now that you mention it, I NEED that ….

In other words, a good sales rep can develop a latent pain issue so that the prospect now feels some urgency in finding a solution. The test of a good sales person is his ability to discover the prospect’s latent pain, and through questioning, increase its importance.

Most folks think selling is telling, when it’s really about listening. And it is not about ’selling,’ it’s just helping people buy.

This last point may be obvious, but needs to be pointed out, the best hands-down sources of new business are current customers. They are up to 8 times easier to sell than developing new ones.