Selling

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Generating new business (#ulink_8b145c37-6aa8-548e-a770-84f970235833)

You need a range of techniques and skills to find new opportunities in your chosen markets. If you work for a large organization, it can be easy to rely on the Marketing department to generate leads or just to stay in your comfort zone and try to win all your business from existing customers. But I have found that it is best to become self-sufficient in the art of creating opportunities for yourself.

3.1 Pick the right prospects (#ulink_cf4ae773-1b99-5525-9028-ebfbf2797621)

The first thing you need to do is decide exactly what sort of customer you are targeting. Here are the five key questions to ask yourself when defining who your target customers will be.

1 Where are they? Make it easy for your customers to find you, in the real world or online, and target customers that you can reach with minimum time and effort.

2 How many of them are there? It’s important to give yourself as many opportunities as possible, so consider how big the total addressable market for your product or service will be.

case study A remark is attributed to Thomas J. Watson, the first CEO of IBM in the early 1950s: “There may be a world market for about five computers.” Despite this lowly prediction, IBM continuously targeted its selling efforts at people whom it identified could use its products. Its total addressable market has turned out to be a lot bigger than five computers!

one minute wonder Analyse past successes. Why did that customer buy? Are there other similar customers out there? Is there a common need in that market which you can address? What is unique about what you’re offering to them?

3 Can they buy? It’s no good going after customers who cannot afford your product or service, or targeting individuals who have no say in the decision. For example, kidney dialysis machines won’t be of much interest to a rural doctor, but perhaps his superiors at the main hospital will be in a better position to buy.