Is This Buyer Persona Thingy Real Or Glorified Bullshit For Consultancies?

Can you remember that, in 2007, the Pentagon spent a whopping $28 million to equip the Afghan army with forest camouflage?

It was amazing considering that over there, only about 2.1% of the terrain is forest or other green areas and the rest is desert.

Apparently, it was the decision of the former Afghan defence minister, Abdul Rahim Wardak, just because he liked the green uniforms.

So, Wardak ordered from the US what he wanted, not what his army really needed.

And this is what I see when consulting firms get obsessed with buyer personas, instead of just developing a perfect client profile.

The obvious question is...

What's The Difference Between A Perfect Client Profile And A Buyer Persona?

Well, they are both similar and different, but what I see is that the buyer persona concept goes a tad too far and essentially creates a target market, but fails to consider the industry, the company and the would-be engagement this person represents.

I reckon, this is why the buyer persona concept is so popular among marketing agencies, since most of those "one stop shops" operate on a "we do anything for anyone for money" mantra.

So, since they don't have specific target markets, at least they can call the buyer persona some kind of targeting.

So, back to the differences...

So, as long as the buyer...

• Is a 37-year-old woman with shoulder-length chestnut brown hair and green eyes
• Who lives in a condo in New York on the 17th floor
• Has two divorces behind her and two small boys
• Is a C++ programming ace
• Has a Harvard MBA
• Owns a blind Persian cat, a deaf Golden Retriever and two (female twins) Vietnamese pot-bellied pigs that can speak both English and French
• Whose parents died during the 9/11 attack
• Who drives a 2012 white BMW 312i with slightly overinflated tyres and one broken tail light...

...this is our buying persona.

Well, you've just painted yourself into a corner, because there is maybe one such person in the world. And that can make you more doomed than a lonely house mouse at a cat convention just before lunch...

And this is the concept we try to discover in this month's bodaciously beleaguered episode of Commando Consulting, expertly entitled, Is This Buyer Persona Thingy Real Or Glorified Bullshit?

Enjoy!