Sales Opportunities: How to select your prospects

Posted by Adam Thorp

Adding new logos to your sales portfolio is becoming ever more complex and ever more expensive. There was a time not too long ago when it was efficient to use the trawling method of chasing sales opportunities: pick companies with the right qualifications in the right verticals in the right territories and prospect like crazy. Now you must be much more targeted, akin rather to trolling (to continue the fishing metaphor) - using pricey bait. Targeting sales opportunities has actually become a Six Sigma process for many of the Fortune 500 companies.

The reasons for this new reality fall into three main categories: external causes, client changes and internal causes.

External Causes

The external causes for the rise in the costs of winning new business are twofold:

1. The economic downturn has made businesses uncomfortable about spending money and this has lengthened the sales cycle, and
2. Globalization is causing a massive increase in competition.

Client Changes

Client expectations have changed. Clients are both more gun-shy and more demanding. They are more gun-shy due to budgetary restraints and a higher degree of oversight. They are more demanding because they can be. They can treat sellers as commodities because they have so many options for any particular solution. Moreover, prospects have begun acting like clients long before they sign on the dotted line. They want meetings, demonstrations, access to your experts and so many other requests once reserved for paying clients. And if you don’t give it to them, someone else will. This is one of the reasons why the pursuit of sales opportunities costs so much more, and why you need to be so much more strategic in deciding which sales opportunities to pursue.

Internal Causes

Internal causes are the “silent killers” of profit and growth. To learn more about these silent killers, which can be stopped. Register and watch Bruce Wedderburn in Sydney as he talks about the hidden cost of sales and how to increase revenue growth as well as drive significant increases in profitability. Download here.