Many years ago an ambulance service realised a significant number of their cardiac patients were dying. So they changed their KPIs to reflect this. i.e. Get the 
patient to the nearest hospital, fast.
A year later they measured the results. While the time to hospital had been slashed, to their horror, they found even more patients were dying.
On analysis they realised they’d confused activity and speed for outcome. Patients didn’t need to go to the nearest hospital, they needed to get to the right hospital. One that specialised in cardiac treatment, even if this prolonged the journey.
It’s a trap many business owners and sales managers/people fall into.
Seeing lots of unqualified prospects who have no intention or ability to buy might tick your activity boxes, but will never lead to a sale – the ultimate outcome you really want.
How often have you heard, “Sales is a numbers game. You just got to keep calling”.
To some extent it’s true. The more people coming into your funnel, the greater the likelihood of generating business. But only if they’re the right type of prospects in the first place!
We all have limited time. So it makes sense to only work with people who have already expressed an interest in your products and who qualify for your “sales” time. Ironically it’s your willingness and ability to qualify people out that will determine your success.
Step one is to decide on who your ideal client is.
A colleague who does bespoke IT projects aimed at increasing operational efficiency realised his ideal clients all had 3 characteristics.
They had to have at least 100 users. The ROI had to be 3 months or less. And the project had to have complexity requiring their skill, or any run of the mill competitor could deliver it.
Step two: Target the right prospects.
There are two ways you can target.
The first is to find individuals in organisations and contact them. The second is to throw out a broader net and attract people into it whereupon you let them sort themselves into qualified/unqualified heaps depending on what actions they take.
Either way you qualify through the use of lead funnels which include giving away high quality information in the form of white papers, books, video instruction, webinars and/or seminars.
People who thoroughly engage with your material are more likely to become high value clients.
For example we know that a large percentage of people who download and actually read our “How to Attract High Value Clients – 10 Strategies to Growing Your Business” will become clients.
More often than not they’ll turn up with the whole document printed out, underlined and with yellow sticky notes all through it.
Having said that, sales is an active game. You can’t just sit there hoping.
I call people who’ve downloaded our material to find out more about them. It’s that call which gets people to move to the next step which is a sales conversation.
Of course, not everyone is ready to move forward, or even a good fit. So we just keep in touch via our newsletters and occasional phone calls. Then when circumstances change, we’re there.
So how’s your marketing and sales system performing?
If you’re not satisfied with where you’re at and want to improve, give Rashid a call on 0414-913-334 and have us create a marketing and sales system which will help you generate more high quality business in less time.
