Salespeople waste a lot of time and effort chasing the wrong prospects, like:
- Those that will never buy from us
- Those that may eventually buy from us, but only after we’ve wasted a lot of time that could have been spent closing other, more profitable deals
- Those that will never buy enough to make their business worth our time
- Those who require a lot of time-consuming, one-off customizations (either in terms of how their deal is structured or what they buy from us—sometimes both) that kill profitability
- Those that are overly difficult to work with, keep tightening specifications without paying for it, or expect a lot of time and effort to be spent on demos or speculative work
Ideal target prospects, the ones who are “best fits” for us, typically have the following things in common:
• They’re growing profitably and taking market share from their competitors
• They have money to spend to improve their business
• They’re similar to our current customers in terms of their businesses and what they need
• They don’t require extensive education or a lengthy sales process to understand what we do and how we can help them
• Their business results (revenue and profit) could improve significantly if they used our products and services
• Their success doesn’t depend on a miracle, like quickly winning a large share of a market they haven’t yet entered. They control their own destiny and understand what that means
• They have a strong desire to improve. This makes them more likely to listen to new ideas and ways of doing things and to change the status quo if it’s in their best interests to do so
Few targets have all these qualities, but the more they have, the better your chances of success
Don’t waste your time chasing the wrong prospects. Even if you manage to overcome the odds and win that business, the cost of that “win” is often too high.