“90 percent of a sale is made before you ever pick up the phone.”
That was one of the many quotes I learned from my mentor in my first sales position when I was with an Internet business in the late 90's. It took me a while to figure out what he was talking about, but the statement stuck with me and I kept turning it over in my mind, like a mystical sales mantra.
What he was talking about, I finally realized, was essentially two interconnected ideas. The first is understanding both your market and your offering. The second (which is the logical extension the first) is prospecting.
If you understand not only your offering but what sort of buyer is most likely to have an interest, it makes identifying those prospects much easier. And if you begin by contacting more highly qualified prospects, the result should be noticeable almost immediately.
As an example, let's say you are in the business of providing bandages. You might cast a wide net in your prospecting and start contacting anyone and everyone, since you could argue that everyone should be prepared in the case of an emergency (which is true!). Some may be interested and some may not – for this example we'll assume that 30% of the people you talk to will show some interest or feel that they have a pressing need. Within that wide range of people you called, you likely started to see certain patterns emerge. Some types of professionals were more likely to understand the need and value of your offering – perhaps firefighters and paramedics. These people are already very familiar with the importance of bandages – they use them on a regular basis. When you talk to them, you find that they not only have a regular need for the product, but they also have an extensive understanding of the different types and quality. Educating this market is not something you need to spend much time on – many of them might be more knowledgeable about certain aspects of bandages than you are. You might be able to simply ask them how many bandages they need and what type. In theory, instead of 30% of this portion of the market being interested in your product, maybe 70% has an immediate need. By focusing on just one small, highly qualified portion of the total market, you just more than doubled your starting chances for building a successful relationship. You also reduced the time it takes to get to the value of your offering. All of which means you should be able to make more sales with less effort.
And what I've found is that this holds true whether you are in the business of selling bandages, Internet services, ballet season tickets or artwork.
In the case of artwork, when I was starting up Chicago Art Leasing, I realized that my market was anyone who had bare walls. Now, there's probably a bare wall in just about every office and home in the country, but I knew that it would be a new definition of insanity to try calling every one of them. So I researched my market – who had need not only for artwork, but saw a clear benefit in leasing rather purchasing it? Most individuals and home owners showed a preference for owning artwork. But businesses saw tax benefits and other advantages in leasing it. Within this market, I found that real estate developers, interior designers, home stagers and a few other categories had a much greater need for temporary or rotating artwork than other industries. So I started focusing more on these and found that sales increased significantly.
I didn't rule out other markets entirely and from time to time I would do some exploration. I found that in some cases, such as law firms, they had needs for my offering but the sales cycle was simply longer as several different partners with different tastes had to reach an agreement before they could make a purchase or lease. Once I had the experience to guide them through the decision making process and a few case studies to share with other law firm prospects, it made generating business from that market much easier. It just took some time and asking a lot of questions to understand the needs of this particular market.
Focusing on what works is critical, but sometimes changing it up and exploring other markets is worthwhile as well. Hyper-focusing on just one segment of the market can become repetitive and even lead to burning out, which is every bit as bad for sales as chasing unqualified leads.
Lastly, I want to introduce an acronym to those of you who are unfamiliar with it: GIGO. If I remember correctly, I first encountered this arrangement of letters in database and technology development. It stands for Garbage In, Garbage Out, meaning that if you start with poor data and faulty code, you will end up with errors and useless output. In the context of prospecting, if you're starting out with less qualified leads, it stands to reason that the number of prospects that make it through the funnel to become new clients will be fewer (see my post “Funnels and You” for more on that topic). I was performing some ticket sales-related work for a well known local ballet company. They had set up a call center and entered leads for the telemarketers to call on. It became apparent that some prospects were much more qualified than others and as the campaign went on, those people who had been called were less likely to purchase than other, fresher contacts. It had all the appearance of a case of GIGO, and being able to prospect outside of the tired leads that had been entered into the sales system seemed to have a noticeable impact.
As always, I hope that you find this information helpful and I always welcome your thoughts and feedback.
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