BUSINESS SALES: Prospecting – getting back to basics

#ProspectingCustomers

As we discovered a few posts ago, nothing is more valuable to a buyer for your business than a solid customer base. Whilst referrals and repeat business are regarded highly, the truth is, nothing scares a buyer more than customers defecting as soon as a seller leaves the business. The assumption is that the customers have an existing relationship with the “seller” rather than with the “business” and this can be extremely difficult and frustrating to prove often scaring buyers off despite contingency plans put in place for post-sale handover!

Unless the seller has transferable, written agreements in place with their key customers; an existing, proven strategy for generating a consistent stream of new customers can balance or outweigh the negative. In our opinion, this percentage of new customers should be at least 10% to 20% of your sales for two reasons: (1) it spreads a good percentage of risk; and (2) it demonstrates that your business is actually growing so you can afford to lose a small percentage of customers.

So how do you prospect for new customers?

Firstly, we suggest getting back to basics and that is:

1. Understand what it is you sell (e.g. what is it, and what does it do for your customer?)
2. Work out who your customer is
3. Understand why your customer buys from you (e.g. what are they hoping to benefit, avoid or preserve from buying from you?)

#BrianTracy.com suggests this simple trick to help answer these questions:

1. List three reasons why someone should purchase your product or service at all from your company, or from some other company;
2. List three reasons why someone who has decided to buy your product or service should buy it from your company rather than from some other company; and
3. List three reasons why a prospect should buy your product or service from you personally rather than from some other salesperson in your company.

We also suggest contacting your previous customers as well as the customers who either gave you a bad review, or didn’t end up doing business with you at all! This should also tell you whether you truly understand your customers and hopefully improve how you pitch your product or service.

In fact, many customers can be won this way. It shows that you care about your customer service, and about them. It also offers a prime opportunity to find out how the prospect found out about you, and therefore direct future marketing effort and funds to campaigns that generate the highest returns.

DISCLAIMER
This is an opinion and should not be taken as professional or legal advice.