For every product or service there is an expected or at least likely set of potential users. The first place to look is of course your current customer base. Look at who has been buying recently and for what reasons. It is likely if your customer company “A” is expanding or spending due to his/her industry conditions, his/her competitors, companies “B” and “C’ are doing likewise. Secondly research who has money to spend. Its good to remember the old collection adage from the finance company I once worked for. “There are those that can’t pay (read buy) and wouldn’t even if they could. There are those that can’t pay however would if they could. There are those that could pay although they won’t and there are those that can pay (buy) and will.” Hot prospects only come from the last group.

Another hot prospect group can be found through referrals. Talk to your existing customers about who they think may be interested in your product, of course still apply in the finance company test above. Two other simple places is through reading the newspapers and industry journals to look for those who are “movers and shakers” in your target market. One good starting place, at least to get a list of potentials that is often forgotten is… the yellow pages. Social media watch: If your potential buyer’s businesses have a Facebook page check periodically on what they are talking about to see if they mention relevant problems or expansion plans that you may be able to capitalize on.

Research and define your target company positions.

Only call on the decision makers. Remember that committees often make decisions so you must engage all players from the outset. If this is too difficult at least make sure you are dealing with to those that have the ability to greatly influence purchasing decisions for your product or service. If you just can’t get to them all spend as much time as you can in coaching your contact on how to sell the other executives on your proposal. Example I once had a lead on a leasing transaction and the company secretary/financial controller had to present his findings to his board. To assist I had to explain an eight centimeter high stack of printouts containing a bunch of numbers to him. He understood however thought the board would have difficulty understanding the figures. I coached him to say… “Leasing through Ric’s company is it most cost effective option, the figures prove it and here they are.” I told him to drop the heavy binder on the boardroom table with a thud and bet him no one would open it. They didn’t and we got the deal.

More soon… I will tweet ( @rictownsend ) when I have finished writing it.

Make sure the sales staff go next door, both sides, or at least visit two more potential or current customers in the same area. In another life whilst training bank managers to sell they would want to travel thirty miles for one call then return to the branch. If you are in sales and have to travel to a call it is an imperative go to the building next door and visit every office that you can talk your way into, you might get a pleasant surprise!

CROSS-SELL:

If you are the sales leader train sales staff to sell aligned products or a range rather than having only “one product expertise”. ‘But boss I sell left handed widgets I don’t know about right handed widgets… take a deep breath and say… well find out…! Hotels are good at this they have travel experts, meetings experts, corporate experts, incentive experts… come to think of it when I was a financier (before I grew up), we had dealer experts, mortgage experts, leasing experts, personal loan experts and of course bullsh*t experts. Sure specialist knowledge is great however no sales person in this business climate should walk out without at least trying to sell a visit by their other product ‘experts’ and they should at least have a broad enough product knowledge to recognise a prospect for anything your organization sells.

THANK YOU NOTES:

Everyone likes to be thanked, a quick note saying thanks for seeing me, or thanks for the order, or thanks for the payment, or thanks for whatever can be a powerful relationship builder. If you’re the sales manager just ask casually at the next sales meeting “how long since anyone has sent a thank-you note?”

THE NUMBERS GAME:

Rule of thumb, ten cold leads will get one prospect, ten prospects will get one customer. How many calls a week is that against the number of customers you expect from each salesperson. More importantly how many contacts are your salespeople really making a week, what audit system have you implemented to weed out the dummy call reports? Selling is a numbers game, the more we talk to, the more we get. Make sure they are networking and reporting accurately on their real activities.

TESTIMONIAL TRICK:

Third party testimonials are very powerful but hard to get. The best way to do it is to ring up the customer (when you know things have gone well) and ask questions that you know will get positive responses. Then ask permission to write the customers experience down, ask permission to send it to him/her and then ask that he/she put it on the company letterhead and send it to you. If you ask customers to write testimonials they will always be too busy, this way you take the thinking out of the process and most will accede to your request. Do all your sales staff understand this ‘trick’

NOTHING HAPPENS UNTIL SOMEBODY SELLS SOMETHING