Don’t think for a second that you’ll keep this whale-client because you landed the big, initial sale. Your team needs to be accessible, reliable, and flexible. Business is about people, relationships. An authentic email. Thoughtful phone call. Focusing on them. All of these things will go a long way to building trust and growing your revenue potential.
In today’s world “instant gratification” is a very strong mindset. It seems we may not have learned enough from the economic collapse of the past few years. “Instant gratification” is especially prevalent in the sales world these days, as well. It seems that the teachings of “getting to no” in conjunction with management pressures to close deals today have created a sales professional that is only interested in spending their time with prospects who are ready to buy now. Effective prospecting in sales has become what day trading is to the stock market – no one is investing for the long term.
Today’s prospecting behaviors involve finding someone who is ready to buy, submitting piles of proposals, or responding to RFQ’s (Request for Quote) that have little chance of being won.
Today I was reading the blog post by Sam Richter on Jill Konrath’s blog about sales intelligence. It reminded me about all the time I devote to researching prospects. I’ve been asked before what I do to prepare for a call, so I thought it would be helpful to document some of the searching that can help you get your foot in the door. Afterall, sometimes getting that first contact is the hardest part! See some of my advice on prospect research below. The goal is to send off or call with the most high impact outreach possible.
This week’s newsletter is about the excuses that we have for not taking action today on a strategy that we believe in. No time, not enough money, wrong people, team is not on board yet, etc. etc. The conversation goes like this: “As soon as I fix ‘X’, I can move forward. If you have a […]
Vhange your paradigm about sales and grow your company.
Today’s Guest Blogger is Joseph Olewitz . Joseph has been there & done that in the area of new business development. In addition to being CEO and Principal Consultant at 22nd Story Strategies, Inc., Joseph currently shares experiences deriving from years of pitching large professional services deals on his Intentional Growth blog. As I […]
Making a commitment to hunt whales is the beginning of a dramatic cultural shift. It’s more than just a new business development strategy. Embarking on this process successfully requires vision, planning, implementation and personal development from everyone involved, particularly the CEO.
My colleague Lindsay Bayuk recently introduced me to the website Real Simple and the “Keep It Together” emails that they deliver. The subject line is “If You Do Just One Thing . . . [fill in the blank]. Actually, the first one I saw was “If you do just one thing . . . clean out […]
Of all the problems with company silos, the one hardest for me to imagine is a marketing silo and a sales silo. Yet I see these divisions all the time, even in small companies. Marketing complains that the sales team will not share information or fill out CRM reports. Sales complains that marketing is wasting time and wasting money and not delivering the right kinds of leads.
Many small businesses need to look bigger and act bigger in order to secure whale-sized business. Whales prospects are afraid of doing deals with businesses that look like a Mom and Pop shop. Is this you? Solopreneurs and small businesses now have the advantages of technology to make them look and act bigger in order to win the bigger sales. (Being more efficient and eco-friendly can’t hurt either).
When I started out in my own business fifteen years ago, I thought that business networking was the way to acquire leads, opportunities, and referrals—in short, the best sales strategy I could pursue. So I networked at Chamber of Commerce events and business roundtable events and women in business events and small business events and […]
Implementing needed, comprehensive change is hard. It’s really hard when it changes they way your company brings in revenue. As I’m finding with many small businesses, however, sometimes the implementation isn’t as difficult as just getting started. Sometimes just having an idea really heard is just as hard and doing the work. Even worse is when no one admits there’s a problem! In order for The Whale Hunters Process™ to really work, both leadership and employees need to be bought into the program. In order for everyone to be on the same page, it can take some convincing.