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A persona for people who create personas
ByHere is a frequently asked question — who should develop our buyer personas? For years I answered the question within the questioner's expected context — I'd say that the people in marketing or, more specifically, product marketing, should own this responsibility. But that's not my answer now. It just wasn't working.
After years of observing the people who thrive in the role of persona creator, plus tons of feedback from people who have made no progress whatsoever, I've noticed that people who readily produce good personas may work in marketing, but they are just as likely to work in other departments. So I've decided to build a persona for the people who excel at buyer persona work.
This is not a well-researched persona, just the accumulation of a lot of years of observations. I'm writing this post to see if I'm on the right track
Let's call this guy Michael, the persona who thrives on buyer persona creation (note that I've found a 50/50 split between males and females for this persona). Michael is . . .
- Extroverted — he gets energy from being around people, both socially and professionally
- Curious, open-minded — he will take a position on a topic but also wants to hear from new sources to get input and other ideas
- Married with two children, having a family is important to Michael
- Is a life-long learner — reads a lot, follows some blogs, loves to attend conferences when possible
- Empathic — has a well-developed capacity to read between the lines and hear what others are not saying
- Confident — he is happy to ask questions to clarify what he thought he heard, and to reach out to talk to people he doesn't know
- In Myers-Briggs, Michael is an ENFJ (although I've seen ENTJs who are also attuned to this work)
- Wants to influence others — has a blog but feels that he doesn't spend enough time on it — Michael is very busy
- Likes to work with the sales people and the sales people like him too — he gets called into too many sales situations and struggles to get his other work done
What did I miss? Do you know anyone who loves to build buyer personas who isn't at all like Michael?
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Wow! as the person who led the creation of our buyer persona, it’s almost like looking in the mirror…
I would add that we were a team of three and the team as a whole fits your description…
Thanks for the comment, Tsahy. Having a team of people working together on buyer personas is a great way to make all of these attributes available.
Hi Adele – Tks for the great post. Really interesting to learn that a persona type exists for this work. ‘Michael’ sounded familiar – I’m also an ENFJ!
Look forward to more posts. Best wishes
PS David says ‘hi’ from Melbourne!
I’ve been building persona profiles for the last 25 years.
Tsahy said, “like looking in the mirror.”
The top lesson I had to learn years ago and still need to remind myself of is that we can’t acknowledge what we’re not already aware of. At least not by ourselves.
We can only see our own attributes or what we don’t like in others. This blocks us from seeing the defined markets persona and writing a true realistic profile.
This is why it’s important to do it with a team because everyone brings with them different things they can see.
Someone very experienced in profiling has also learned to “see” more than their own mirror.
I learned most of this when I took classes in criminal profiling. I took the classes because I thought it would be fun. I sure didn’t know how much it would affect how to create marketing profiles.
I also took several writing analysis courses. That’s fascinating as well.
Adele -
Nice posting. I found your blog through Steve Johnson’s blog roll and I will certainly be coming back.
I absolutely love thinking about and creating buyer personas! In fact, I am in a job search right now and have found that thinking about the various buying personas in a hiring process has helped me advance my search.
Like others have said, reading your observations was like looking at a list of things people have said or observed about me. You are certainly in tune with what is going on around you!
Thanks again for the posting.
Drew
http://www.DrewHull.us
Thanks to all who have submitted comments (all men?) who say that my persona is an exact match. I’m wondering whether the people who don’t see the match (a) aren’t reading this post, or (b) choose not to comment or (c) if I just nailed it so perfectly that no one else exists. All comments are welcome.
Adele
Keep the focus on your buyers –
read the Buyer Persona Blog
http://www.buyerpersona.com
Thanks a lot for this simple yet very very useful solution.
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Wow! as the person who led the creation of our buyer persona, it’s almost like looking in the mirror…
awesome!
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