Author's Note: This is part one of a two part series.
When did it become fashionable to say that one "works smarter" rather than "works harder"? I don't know but like many fashionable sayings, many folks don't have the slightest idea what it means or how to do it.
Assuming that "smarter" is better than "harder" let's take on the task of figuring out what it means for a seller and how to do it.
"Smarter" sounds like a person who doesn't waste much time. "Harder" sounds like a person willing to put in as many hours as it takes to get the job done. Of course, smart sellers work hard but the difference is that smart sellers realize that it doesn't necessarily take twelve hours a day to achieve peak productivity. A smart seller is willing to put in the extra hours when necessary but she works efficiently to avoid that being the norm.
Okay, that's what it means. Now, how do you do that?
There are four steps to becoming a smart seller:
Step One - The Ideal Customer Profile
Every smart seller has a very good idea of who buys the majority of their products and services. He is able to identify the characteristics of this customer so that when he comes across a prospect he is able to discern the likely value of the prospect. You see, a smart seller doesn't just want new customers, he wants a new customer that is at least better than his worst customer and as close as possible to his best customer. Smart sellers know that their time is limited and they seek to maximize that time by spending it with their very best customers and their very best prospects.
If you don't have an ideal customer profile then it's time to get started. For example purposes, we'll use a business to business sales process.
First Step: Identify the accounts responsible for 80% of your company's sales.
Second Step: Break down the group into industry categories. If you sell copiers, you'll have several categories but if you sell chemical resist you may have only one category.
Third Step: Within each category, identify the size of the business in terms of number of employees and annual revenue.
Fourth Step: Identify the title of the decision maker and her location.
Fifth Step: Examine the data and build a profile of your primary and secondary customers.
The key to doing this effectively is to start with a sufficiently large group of customers. We are trying to identify specifics but not every seller will be able to determine the specifics in every step. For instance, our copier salesperson may find that his company's top accounts represent fifteen different industries. So, industry category may not be all that helpful. However, if all of the best customers have less than 100 employees and revenue of less than $20 million and the seller can only sell in South Carolina, then we are on to something.
Furthermore, if the company has never sold a single copier to a prospect in the real estate management business we may conclude that the real estate management business is not a good place to prospect. Of course, if no one can identify a reason why the company has been unsuccessful in this category, we may decide to focus on the category for a short time in order to test our theory.
Ultimately, the smart seller will have a prospecting plan based on the ideal customer profile.
When I worked in the local recruitment website business, we spent a great deal of time prospecting for customers on the large national recruitment job boards. After much failure we came to the conclusion that these weren't our best prospects. Our best prospects were going to look like our best customers. When we re-directed our efforts we became much more successful.
Step Two - Building a Pipeline
Maybe you don't like to do administrative work. Most sellers do not. However, most sellers also agree that having a system to keep track of their selling efforts is critical to their success. Of course, but keeping track is only half the battle. Staying directed is the other half because it does no good to keep track of what you are working on if you are always working on the least valuable business.
Entire books have been written about building and managing a pipeline. I'm not going to get into all of that with one posting. Let's keep it simple for now and follow these steps:
Make a list with four columns.
A) Column 1 is for your customers that make up 80% of your annual sales
B) Column 2 is for your prospects that look most like your best customers (based on the ideal customer profile you created above)
C) Column 3 is for your other customers
D) Column 4 is for those prospects that you think can be added to column 2 but you just haven't done the due diligence. Column 4 is not for prospects that don't look like your best customers because you aren't going to waste your time prospecting for low value customers.
Now, when you come to work, focus on the customers that you are currently trying to renew in Column 1. After you've exhausted everything you can do for them, work on the prospects in Column 2. If there is any time left in the day, work on qualifying some of the prospects in Column 4 and make a determination if they should be moved to Column 2 or discarded. Do the same thing the next day.
Smart sellers work like this because they know the most important task is to bring in revenue and the best most likely place to find revenue is with those people who already trust you and like your products. You may be thinking that instead of spending so much time on Column 2 prospects you should work on increasing the value of Column 3 customers. No doubt there is value there but a smart seller allows the marketing department to spend their time with those folks. Face it. You have already had a shot at those customers and you've identified them as having the least value. You weren't wrong about that so don't lose sleep over the fact that you are not going to be spending a great deal of time with them.
In the next post, we'll talk about the final two steps to becoming a smart seller. Meanwhile, get cracking on your ideal customer profile and your four-columns.
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