It’s the beginning of 2015. There are new sales quotas to achieve and opportunities to develop. One of best ways to insure you will hit your quota is to fish where the fish are biting.
This is the time of year where sales professionals develop their Top 10 or Top 25 List of prospects. Here’s an important tip to remember. You can be the greatest salesperson in the world, however, if you call on prospects that don’t match your demographics or psychographics, you are going to be busy and broke.
Get clear on your ideal client. At SalesLeadership, we coach clients to look at both the demographics and the psychographics when developing their Top 10 list. Many salespeople miss revenue goals because they only look at demographics when developing their target prospect list. Demographics such as size of the company, number of employees, and revenues are important. Equally important is the psychographic or the attitude and values of your best prospects.
When I ask salespeople to describe their best clients, I often hear, “They treat vendors like partners. They are proactive in seeking solutions. They value outside counsel and opinions.” None of those answers have anything to do with demographics. They have everything to do with psychographics, the attitude or values of an organization.
In the sales training business, we win more business with companies that value education and outside advice. It is as important as the demographics which include size and revenues of the sales organization.
Apply the emotional intelligence skill of reality testing. Conduct a win-loss analysis and see how many opportunities you lost because— you shouldn’t have called on the prospect in the first place!
Set yourself up for success in the New Year by fishing where the fish are actually biting!
Good Selling!
