The Election: What It Teaches Us About Sales

The commercials (happy I didn't live in a swing state) are over, the debates are done and the election is history.  It feels like forever but the election was just 5 months ago.  The pundits are all talking about the lessons each party can take away from the past presidential showdown.
From a business perspective, we can learn a lot from the President's 2% win over Mitt Romney.  Here's the lesson for every small-business owner:  Know Your Customer.
The president's campaign understood, from the very beginning, that the key strategy for winning the swing states was to focus on the voters that would be most likely to vote for him, Hispanics and single women.  Knowing he had the African-American vote locked up, his strategies (amnesty for young immigrants and free birth control and the war on women) were disseminated throughout the swing states.  His army of workers primary mission was to find these two groups and get them registered.  In Ohio, for instance, his crew worked for two years searching out the demographics (single women/Hispanics) to get them registered. Once registered, they then went to work to get the groups to the polls.
The strategy is one all businesses should follow.  Find out who is most likely to be your paying customer, and focus your energies on those customers.  One of the biggest obstacles for business owners is trying to be all things to all customers.  We all believe in our products and services and our natural instincts are to convince everyone to hire us.
However, the key to sales success is to focus on your most profitable customers.  Find them.  Provide services geared directly to them.  Finally, get them to sign up for your products/services.
The lesson from the 2012 election we can all use in our own businesses.
-Ron Ameln, SBM