Winning New CustomersAsking how to do this is a bit like asking ‘what is the meaning of life?’. Simple stuff at its core – but it can get complicated along the way….. The central principles are: Define your key added-value deliverablesBe very clear about what it is you are really selling. I don’t mean just the products or services (as important as they are) – but what they can potentially do for your customer. Think carefully about your deliverables and where they are advantageous versus the competition – i.e. where do you have competitive advantage? (bearing in mind that this could be different depending on who the competitor is) Identify where you are most likely to succeed with new business opportunitiesMake a list of the factors which determine where you should seek out your new business and apply some form of ‘weighting’ to allow you to prioritise. At the top of your list should be a question which allows you to define those most likely to be receptive to your ‘story’. Understand your prospect's world so you can identify with themDo your homework on the organisations you plan to approach. What is going on in their world? What’s topical and ‘hot’? What is likely to be on their business agenda? Consider where your strongest propositions lieDo some preliminary thinking about the proposition/s you have in your portfolio (see first principle above) which potentially connects with your understanding of what’s likely to be on their agenda. Where do you first make contact?Also as part of your homework, consider who the most appropriate first stage contact is. Remember that: - This very often isn’t who the organisation points at the outside world and uses as its ‘filter’
- Further downstream in your dialogue it will be much easier to be delegated downwards than vice versa.
What message is threaded through your initial communication?Decide how you will approach the organisation with the ‘lead’ proposition threaded into your communication: - Phone in direct
- Call PA first
- Work with partner
- E-mail / letter in first instance ready for telephone follow-up
- Seek out introduction from a networked contact
- In relation to the last point above, it has been our consistent experience that people in selling in the UK give nowhere near enough thought to how they can get an introduction.
- Do you know someone who works there or has worked there?
- Do you know someone in a complementary business?
- Can you find out something about their business / market which allows you to make a connection?
What impact do conversion ratios have on the way you plan sales activity?Do some conversion rate-based arithmetic which ensures that you plan enough activity to achieve your target Matching their needs to your deliverables.....When you are with your prospect, put the emphasis on making the connection between your knowledge of what’s happening in their world, his / her needs (as identified by your questions), and your potential deliverables. Hey presto – the meaning of life…!! Contact Salespunch™ to discuss how all of the above can be pulled together into a coherent new business sales plan -- and to find out how we can provide hands-on support in helping you to win the new business you need to achieve your sales aims. Contact Salespunch™ - Now! |
A tool for working out who your 'best fit' customers are. Salespunch™ believes that organisations have the right to choose their customers and in reality need relatively few compared with the total available market. This Salespunch™ tool enables this simple profiling and scoring of target customers to ensure that valuable sales resource is focussed on the right prospects. Contact your Salespunch™ coach for a demonstration.
Once new business visits have been secured it is essential that the effectiveness of the call is maximised. The Salespunch™ pre-call planning template ensures that the required background information is assembled and that due attention is given to call objectives and the tactics of how to achieve them. The template includes guidelines on analysing the decision-making process, coupled with a matrix identifying the value propositions and the lines of questions to be persued to develop customer needs and wants. Contact your Salespunch™ coach for a demonstration.
What should be included within your marketing plan? Every company, no matter how small or large, needs to develop a marketing plan in order to have a clear picture about what it wants to achieve. A marketing plan should help an organisation to establish and coordinate its marketing initiatives. Marketing plans might be made at several levels of an organisation: there can be a marketing plan for the whole company and / or individual plans for different divisions. Over-run with literature about how to develop a marketing plan, there are some basic components that appear in all cases....... Click here for more
"If you do a lot of things to build business, you'll build business. They don't have to be done perfectly to work, although the better you do them, the better they'll work. But the main point is that you have to do them -- a lot." --Joe Girard Sales is a contact sport and prospecting for new business is the name of the game! You will never meet a salesperson who failed because they had too many prospects to talk to. For the majority of salespeople, finding new customers is without a doubt the most difficult and stressful aspect of their profession. Prospecting should be viewed more as a mindset than merely an activity. It is something you need to be constantly aware of because you never know where your next prospect will come from. It really doesn’t matter how competent you are or how well you know your product, if you don’t have a qualified prospect in front of you, you don’t have the opportunity to make a sale. In this article, we aim to give you 8 practical tools for use when prospecting for new business. Click here for more To arrange an exploratory conversation with your coach, please contact Salespunch™ - Now! 01883 621088 |