Make More Sales: Reject
Prospects And Fire Clients
One of my sales coaching clients,
let's call him John, emailed me the other week and said his revenue for
the month had increased by 29% over the same time the previous year. He
said one of the reasons for this was because he rejected a lot of his
prospects and fired 10% of his clients. Sounds both illogical and
radical, don't you think?
Prior to John deciding to become a
radical, he would try and sell to anyone who was interested.
Consequently he wasted a lot of time, money and resources (TMR) trying
to attract and sell to people who were never going to buy, or if they
did buy, the headaches they caused did not make them worthwhile. He
wasted a lot of time on people who were never going to become ideal
clients.
Also the TMR John was spending on
people who were never going to become ideal clients, was taking away
from the TMR he could be spending on those who would.
So when he became a radical, John
simply decided to focus his valuable and limited TMR on potential ideal
clients - and he rejected a lot of prospects he was already talking to.
He also went one step further and fired the bottom 10% of his clients so
he could free up even more TMR for potential ideal clients.
Sounds fairly logical and sensible
don't you think? So are you spending your valuable and limited TMR on
selling only to ideal prospects i.e. those prospects who have the
potential to become your ideal client? If not, it is probably because of
one or more of the following reasons:
You aren't clear about who your
ideal prospect is. Right now write down a description of your ideal
prospect. Did you struggle? If you are part of a team, ask around and
see who everyone thinks is the ideal prospect. Is their view the same as
yours? If not, why not? Either way, valuable and limited TMR is being
wasted.
You have convinced yourself that
the "hit and miss" approach of trying to sell to everyone is going to
give you more sales than if you use a targeted approach. Why waste
valuable and limited TMR on people who aren't going to buy?
Believe it or not a lot of
companies praise salespeople for having lots of prospects. The
salesperson with the longest list is the biggest hero - irrespective of
the quality of the prospects. This obviously rewards/encourages
salespeople for the wrong behavior.
You don't have a formalized
2-filter process in place. Every prospect needs to go through this
filtering process before you invest too much TMR.
So if you want to only spend your
valuable and limited TMR on only ideal prospects put the 2-filter
process in place. Here are the 2-filters.
Filter One - Is About Them They
have the demographics (characteristics like size, industry, revenue,
etc.) and psychographics (values, style, culture, feeling, and personal
characteristics) of your ideal client. In essence they are the sort of
company/individual you are targeting and enjoy working with.
Just a small amount of TMR will
need to be spent to determine if a company/individual gets through this
filter.
Filter Step Two - Is About The
Opportunity This is where you look at the specific opportunity and
qualify the opportunity to see if there is a high probability of it
closing.
Putting prospects through this
filter requires an investment of TMR but the TMR spent on qualifying
will save you a significant amount of wasted TMR later on.
Make a commitment to put your
2-filter process in place as soon as possible and to only spend your
limited and valuable TMR on those prospects who have gone through these
2 filters. Once this process is in place, let your team know about it
and put structures in place to ensure everyone uses the 2-filter
process.
Your next step is to fire those
clients who did not go through the 2-filter process and who you wish
were not your clients. That will free up more TMR for your ideal
prospects and for your ideal clients. By rejecting non-ideal prospects
and firing some of your non-ideal clients, you really can make more
sales with less effort. Try it and see.
(c) 2007, Tessa Stowe, Sales
Conversation. WANT TO USE THIS ARTICLE IN YOUR E-ZINE OR WEBSITE? Yes,
you can, provided you make all links live and include this copyright and
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Tessa Stowe teaches small business
owners and recovering salespeople 10 simple steps to turn conversations
into clients without being sales-y or pushy. Sign-up for her FREE
monthly newsletter that is full of tips on how to sell your services by
just being yourself at http://www.salesconversation.com
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