Sales Prospecting - The Quickest Way to Win New Business Part 2

We are looking at the quickest ways to win new business by careful sales prospecting. The reality is there is no quicker way to develop a list of target clients than to revisit your past successes, the companies involved and target their competitors and their Industry.

An Example:

A company I was doing some work for received an unsolicited inbound call from a company in an Industry sector they had never worked in before. In fact they would never have thought of approaching them.

They found out that a recent change in legislation and government funding had forced them to seek out the services of this company. They developed a special solution that fir the needs of this organisation, supplied it and then got a great testimonial.

Most companies would pat themselves on the back, say well done and move on to finding new business. Not this company. They were smart.

Within days the company had purchased a list of similar organisations (about 220) and had called and set appointments with most of them. This resulted in a hugely lucrative area of business, in a short space of time, purely by being awake to the opportunities that came their way.

This is the single biggest area of quick appointments that will come your way. Can you see that by leveraging your knowledge of their business and combining it with your knowledge of their issues and goals you can quickly build a credible reason for an introduction.

Your Task:

1 Take 10 sheets of paper and write the name of a client/customer you currently have. Describe their industry/business.
2 Spend 20 minutes per client researching Google, the trade press and directories to determine who their competitors are.
3 Cross out any that you think it is unethical or bad business practice to contact because of your relationship with your existing client. Something to think about here is how good is your relationship with your existing client? Quite frankly, not all clients are equal and some are just trouble. If your existing client is trouble (late payer, last minute changes e.t.c) then would your life be better swapping them with someone else? Just a thought.