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03.22.07
Sales Prospecting & A Targeted Selection Process
 By
Jeff Hardesty
What's a Targeted Selection Process? As related to prospecting, it is a process or system of defining whom you want to call on and performing the due diligence of data procurement to understand who you are calling on and why you have chosen them.
It can be as simple as choosing an industry, picking a company name out of the yellow pages, understanding the appropriate level of contact to call on, and investigating a name that goes with the title. Or it can be as complex as an expensive CRM (customer relationship management) system for existing customers, defining market share of your product portfolio and routinely touching the existing base to broaden the revenue pond.
But here's what's important to understand.
Your Targeted Selection Process is a separate component of your sales strategy. It stands by itself. But it is directly allied with your other Sales performance indicators. The degree of success you'll have in the business of sales is proportional to raising and maintaining these success indicators to a level more proficient than the industry norm. And the direction you decide to travel is strategic to the outcome. I call it the ‘Playing Field'. Because that's where it all starts… it's where the game begins.
Here's what I mean. There are basically (2) strategies in picking your ‘Playing Field'; a ‘Bottom-up' approach or a ‘Top-down' approach. The following is an example of a Bottom-up approach. A Telecommunications rep initiates a telephone call into a company and asks the question "Who handles your telecommunications needs?" Guess where they are sent? If you said ‘office manager' you guessed right. If you said ‘Head Janitor' you weren't far off. Is there anything ‘wrong' with that? Not really; it's legal and a lot of folks out there do it.
But let's think through this option as a ‘Business person' would. Let's study it as it relates to our sales process and individual Key Performance Indicators (KPI); Conversation-to-appointment ratio, 1st appointment to Proposal ratio, Closing ratio, sales cycle and average revenue per sale. Because these success indicators are gateways that directly affect the outcome of a sales process. Do your KPI's go up or down with a bottom-up approach? Historically, a bottom-up approach promotes a:
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1st appointment to Proposal ratio to decrease
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Closing ratio to decrease
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Sales cycle to increase
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Average revenue per sale to decrease
Continue reading this article.
About
the Author:
Jeff Hardesty is a National sales speaker, Sales performance improvement consultant and the Developer of the X2 Sales System®, a blended sales prospecting training system that teaches sales professionals the competency of setting targeted C-level business appointments.
Jeff can be reached at jeff@salesspeakerpro.com.
Submit your sales performance numbers and receive a complimentary Sales performance Check-up with Jeff and a 15-minute Evaluator web-cast complete with (3) Sales Performance Improvement Blueprints @
http://www.salesspeakerpro.com/sales-performance-appraisal.php
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