The Center for Sales Strategy Blog

Three years ago, our team discovered the power of inbound marketing and began experimenting with the best way to use it in order to grow our own business. We knew we needed to stop wasting time and energy searching for the right prospects among a mountain of possibilities and we were increasingly determined to figure out how to clear a path so those businesses who needed us could come find us instead. After our first year of great success on our own behalf (our new business is WAY up), our expertise was strong and we were ready to help our clients achieve the same kinds of results we were enjoying. 

For two years now we have been considered a leader in inbound marketing. We have helped many businesses in the U.S. learn how to turn the tables so the few best prospects can find them and raise their hands. We are currently a Platinum-level partner with Hubspot and we consult 22 inbound clients at this moment.

Recently our expertise gained recognition far beyond our country’s borders and we have had the opportunity to help businesses in Western Europe put these same principles to work.

What I Have Learned as a CEO About Engaging Prospects

I have spent nearly all of my adult life as a top-producing salesperson, sales manager, or consultant. For years, I have taught many organizations how to find and engage prospects, and they do very well. But there is one undeniable truth that changes outcomes more than any other when it comes to new business development: having prospects who already know a thing or two about your company.

A prospect who already knows something about your company and how you do business, a prospect who already has genuine interest in buying from you, is much more profitable than the one where you work to create a need for your product. Many of us have seen the now-classic movie, Glengarry Glen Ross where the good leads were allegedly locked in the safe and created much angst among the pressured salespeople.

Gone are the days when the best prospects were storefront businesses lined up along Main Street. Back then, a salesperson could simply wander in, looking a little like a shopper, and have reasonable hope of engaging in a productive conversation with the proprietor. Today’s prospects look almost entirely different, ranging from less-accessible big-box and chain retailers to exclusively Web-based businesses to insurance providers, educational institutions, investment offerings, group medical practices, personal technology devices, and more—none of which can be approached casually.

And, just as you can no longer simply drop in, so too have the email and voicemail paths to the prospect become hellishly difficult to penetrate. Between the human gatekeepers and the electronic ones, today’s prospects are very well insulated. Some screen salespeople out simply because there are too darn many of them, a multitude of people selling advertising this and marketing that. But others do so because experience tells them that most of these salespeople are a colossal waste of time: Given how easily prospects can access product information online, information that’s often more accurate and useful than what they get from salespeople, why would any prospect take a meeting with a salesperson? 

Our recently published report, The Biggest Challenges of Media Salespeople and Sales Managers, reveals the findings of a study we completed late in 2013.  The questionnaire offered sales managers a list of 14 current issues they may be wrestling with, and asked them to select their three biggest—the three problems that, if solved or even partially solved, would make the biggest difference in their operation. Too many products and services to sell popped up near the top of that list, as Management Challenge #3.

We can’t remember the last time someone published a reliable answer to the question,"What Keeps Media Salespeople and Their Managers Awake at Night?" So we fielded a fairly ambitious piece of research to find out.

We started with 65 one-on-one interviews in which respondents were asked open-ended questions. We analyzed their responses, and characterized and aggregated them to produce a list of challenges faced these days by sales managers and salespeople in the media. The items on those lists—one list for managers, one for sellers—were then tested among a much larger sample.

Spending time with fewer, more highly-qualified prospects is generally a good strategy. Better prospects who meet your Ideal Customer Profile deserve more time, energy, and creativity in your approach because they have such strong potential. In fact, you probably already know the monetary value of such a high-quality appointment with the near-perfect prospect.

Peter Drucker says "Concentration is the secret to all economic success," and concentrating your appointment-setting activities on ideal prospects always pays off. If you make 40 new business approaches a week, you will accomplish more by communicating five times with eight strong prospects than one time with 40 prospects. Studies show prospects don't even begin to notice you until you make five approaches and many appointments are set after seven touches. Most salespeople give up way before that.

Quantity or Quality?

But sometimes we see salespeople using the quality paradigm as an excuse to make fewer new business calls. New business activity should not diminish because you are calling on fewer prospects. In fact, it may actually increase compared to the scorched earth approach of just smiling and dialing. Under this approach your work is directed toward your best prospects and the work is more likely to secure an appointment.  

A few years ago when I was teaching a program for managers one of the participants came up afterward to share a point of view. Don had spent a number of years as a manager in a well-known, Fortune 500 company whose name I will not mention here. We had just finished a discussion about the important role powerful relationships play between managers and their direct reports. 

A Real Story

Don said, “You know, Jim at X Company we always believed that any interaction between a manager and a subordinate should be net gain to the manager.”  What an interesting comment. I was so taken aback I had to confirm that I had heard him correctly. “So, Don, you are telling me that every time I interact with you as my manager, you gain and I lose?” In essence, he said yes.