"How Traditional Target Audiences Obscure the View of Real Business Opportunities"
If you start with companies, you’ll find lists. If you start with needs, you’ll find connections.
Most sales organizations start their search in the same place: with companies.
They define a target industry, specify a company size, narrow down the region, and then search for suitable companies and contacts. This approach results in lists of target customers, campaigns, and sales territories.
This approach makes sense. Companies are visible, distinct, and comparable. They have a name, a location, revenue, and a specific number of employees. You can find them in databases, store them in CRM systems, and assign them to sales representatives.
A need, however, is harder to pin down.
It doesn’t have its own address. It’s rarely openly listed on a website. And it can’t simply be selected using an industry filter.
Nevertheless, the company itself is not the actual starting point of a business opportunity.
It’s the need.
When a sales team searches for companies, they usually follow a simple logic: This company fits our target audience, so it might need our offering.
The problem lies in the word “might.”
A company may, in principle, be a good fit for your offering but still have no current reason to consider it. It may be in the right industry, be the right size, and even have the right technical infrastructure. However, if there’s no concrete need to act, no relevant goal, and no impending change, it remains, for the time being, nothing more than a suitable data entry.
This is precisely why traditional target customer lists often result in many contacts that are formally correct but practically irrelevant.
The sales team then tries to figure out only during the initial outreach whether there is any need at all. They make calls, write emails, and send information to clarify a question that, ideally, should have been answered before making contact:
Why should this company be addressing our topic right now?
A traditional target audience can be defined very precisely. It might include manufacturing companies with 100 to 500 employees, a specific minimum revenue, and multiple locations in German-speaking countries.
That’s a good way to narrow things down.
However, it only describes which companies an offering could, in principle, be applicable to. It says nothing about who currently has a relevant need.
Let’s take a provider of automation technology as an example. Its target audience might consist of medium-sized manufacturing companies. Within this target audience, however, there are very different situations.
One company is struggling with a shortage of skilled workers and wants to reduce manual work steps. Another is setting up a new production line. A third has been producing at a steady rate for years and currently sees no reason for change. A fourth could technically automate its processes but has just completely frozen all investments.
All four belong to the same target audience.
But for only some of them does this present a current opportunity.
The target group, therefore, indicates where to look. The need indicates what the search is for and why it’s worthwhile.
Another drawback of traditional target groups is that they often define markets too narrowly by industry.
Yet the same need can arise in very different companies.
The shortage of skilled workers doesn’t just affect mechanical engineering. It can lead to new investments in logistics, production, technical service, or administration. Rising energy costs can put equal pressure on chemical companies, metal fabricators, food manufacturers, and data centers. New regulatory requirements can force completely different industries to adapt their processes, systems, or documentation.
Those who think exclusively in terms of industries view these companies in isolation.
Those who think in terms of needs recognize the common trigger.
This fundamentally changes the market. Suddenly, the relevant market no longer consists of just one industry, but of all companies facing the same challenge.
This shifts the focus from an industry-based perspective to a problem-based perspective.
And this problem-based perspective can reveal business opportunities that remain undiscovered in traditional segmentation.
The statement “The company has 300 employees” says little about its current situation.
The statement “The company has been unable to fill open positions in production for months and is simultaneously expanding its capacity” is far more meaningful.
The first piece of information describes the company.
The second points to a challenge.
The same applies to revenue, location, or industry. This information helps categorize a company. On its own, however, it does not explain why an investment might become likely.
A need typically arises when a gap emerges between the current state and a necessary or desired goal.
The company’s production is too slow, but it needs to process more orders. The existing equipment causes too many downtimes, yet delivery reliability must be ensured. Information is scattered across various systems, but decisions need to be made faster. A location is growing, but the current processes aren’t scaling accordingly.
This gap is the actual starting point for sales.
That is where the pressure to act arises.
Let’s imagine a supplier that sells industrial extraction systems.
The traditional search might start with industries where dust, chips, or emissions occur. This results in a list of metal fabricators, wood producers, building materials manufacturers, and other manufacturing companies.
This is fundamentally correct, but still very broad.
If the search instead begins with the need, the questions change. Then, for example, the focus shifts to which companies are currently expanding their production, installing new machinery, changing manufacturing processes, required to meet stricter occupational safety requirements, or seeking to resolve complaints about emissions and pollution.
This doesn’t necessarily make the market any smaller. But it does make it easier to understand.
The sales team doesn’t just see who might generally need an extraction system. It recognizes where a situation is currently arising in which a new solution could actually be relevant.
This also changes the way the sales team approaches potential customers.
Instead of speaking generally about performance, filter technology, and quality, the sales team can establish a connection to the company’s specific development.
A product presentation becomes a meaningful conversation starter.
The classic sales question is:
Which companies might need our product?
A needs-based question is:
What problem does our offering solve, and where is that problem currently arising?
This reversal sounds simple at first. However, it forces a company to view its own offering from the customer’s perspective.
A machine manufacturer, for example, is no longer just selling a machine. It may be solving capacity bottlenecks, reducing scrap, or enabling new products.
A software provider doesn’t just sell an application. It might shorten turnaround times, improve transparency, or reduce manual work.
A consulting firm doesn’t just sell workshops and projects. It helps reduce uncertainty, prepare for decisions, or implement changes.
Only once the problem being solved is clear can one specifically identify where that problem arises.
Companies are usually treated as fixed units in sales systems. They are assigned to a segment, a sales territory, or an industry.
In reality, they are constantly changing.
A company that seems uninteresting today may build a new production facility in six months. A previously attractive target customer may halt its investments. Another company may change its management, enter a new market, or introduce a technology that suddenly creates an entirely new need.
A company’s fit is therefore not static.
It changes with the company’s situation.
This also means that a good target customer does not necessarily remain a good target customer indefinitely. And a company that is unremarkable today may become highly relevant tomorrow.
The actual market, therefore, consists not only of companies.
It consists of companies in specific situations.
When sales starts with needs, the results of the research change as well.
Instead of a list of company names, a kind of needs map emerges. It connects companies with potential triggers, current changes, and the tasks that might result from them.
Such an analysis could, for example, show that a company is expanding its capacity, is looking for new production staff, and has recently won a major contract. No single signal is proof of an investment on its own. Taken together, however, they form a plausible connection.
Another company in the same industry shows no comparable changes. It remains a suitable candidate in principle but is given a lower priority.
The decision is thus no longer based solely on master data, but on the likelihood that a relevant issue will arise.
This does not provide certainty.
But it establishes a better order of priority.
A needs-based search must not lead to hastily interpreting every signal as an intent to purchase.
A new job posting does not automatically mean that a company will purchase an automation solution. An expansion of operations does not necessarily lead to an order for every technology provider. And a regulatory change does not guarantee an investment.
There are further questions to consider between a recognizable need and an actual business opportunity.
Does your own offering truly fit the situation? Is the problem significant enough to create a sense of urgency? Is there a budget, a priority, and an accessible decision-maker? Is the timing right? And can the provider offer credible assistance?
Commercial intelligence should therefore not pretend to provide certainty.
The goal is to identify connections and better justify priorities.
Sales replaces broad assumptions with a more well-founded hypothesis.
If you only know that a company belongs to the target audience, you can usually only communicate in general terms.
The approach then goes something like this: “We offer an interesting solution for companies in your industry.”
On the other hand, those who understand a potential need can be more specific.
In that case, the opening line might be: “You’re currently expanding your manufacturing operations while simultaneously building up your technical staff. In situations like this, bottlenecks often arise in certain process steps. That’s exactly where we can help.”
This approach doesn’t work better simply because it’s worded more cleverly.
It works better because it establishes a clear connection to the recipient’s situation.
The recipient doesn’t have to labor to figure out why the topic might be relevant to them. The sales team has already done part of that work.
Commercial Intelligence therefore shifts the starting point of sales research.
It does not begin with compiling as complete a list as possible of all companies in a market. It begins with an understanding of the challenges, changes, and needs that make one’s own offering relevant.
Next, we examine which companies are likely to face these situations or where they are already evident.
The company remains important. Without the right companies, there is no market.
But it is no longer the sole starting point.
The sequence is no longer:
Find companies, identify contacts, ask about needs.
Rather:
Understand the needs, identify suitable situations, prioritize companies, and approach them in a targeted manner.
This shift in perspective doesn’t eliminate every uncertainty. Nor does it automatically lead to a contract.
But it does improve the quality of the selection process.
Sales organizations traditionally look for companies because companies are easy to identify, filter, and segment.
But business opportunities don’t arise simply because a company belongs to a target group.
They arise when a relevant need, pressure to change, or a specific goal at a suitable company aligns with a suitable offering.
Traditional target groups therefore remain important. They indicate where a market might generally be located.
However, those who focus solely on industries, revenue, and number of employees see primarily companies.
Those who also look for processes, changes, and emerging tasks are more likely to recognize where a conversation can truly be meaningful.
Perhaps, then, the first question in sales should no longer be:
“Which companies do we want to reach?”
But rather:
What needs can we address—and where are they arising right now?
After all, companies are listed in databases.
Needs arise in the real world.
And that’s exactly where the real business opportunities lie.
The next article explores why particularly interesting target customers often don’t stand out when using traditional filters—and how changes, new tasks, and subtle signals can make companies visible before they actively start looking for a provider.
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