Solutions to help: Win new customers

Cover your entire market more effectively

At any one time only a relatively small number of companies in your territory will be actively looking for whatever you sell. So you need to identify who they are as soon as possible – because the later you get into a deal the less your chances of influencing it and of winning it.

In order to do this effectively you need cover your entire territory – but most sales people don’t. They can’t – the numbers are against them. Here’s why.

In order to effectively cover one company in their territory a sales rep needs to communicate regularly with two, three or more people. In fact some large companies have literally dozens of decision makers, recommenders and influencers.

But assuming your average sales person needs to keep in touch with three people per company, and assuming they have fifty companies in their territory (and most sales reps have many more) – that’s 150 people they need to communicate with three or four times a year to be effective.

Most sales people simply don’t have the bandwidth, especially when they have a hundred or more companies in their territory. Because it isn’t where their key focus is.

Their focus is, quite rightly, on managing active sales opportunities, giving presentations, organising demonstrations, writing proposals, building relationships, closing deals and often negotiating contracts. Winning one major deal can soak up a sales person’s time for weeks – and while that’s happening, other companies in his or her territory are pressing ahead with their own plans.

It’s almost certain that there are companies in your territory with opportunities that you don’t know about. It’s highly likely that your competitors are winning deals you didn’t even know existed. There are probably many potential customers that don’t know you have the capability to help them. Some of them may not even know that you exist.

We use our WebONE Integrated Marketing Database to help our Clients cover their territories much more effectively and economically by communicating with and nurturing these people for you until they are ready to buy, by building trusted relationships, by identifying more genuine sales opportunities. In conjunction with out ARM Business Platform we free your sales people to spend their time doing what they do best – selling.

Know who’s coming to market before your competitors

When do you want to find out about a deal – when a prospect first identifies that they have a critical business issue to deal with? Or would you rather wait until an RFP turns up in the mail or when someone calls you with 70% of the buyer’s journey already complete?

Because we regularly talk to companies in our Clients’ target markets we know their timeframes, usually before their competitors even know there’s a deal in the offing – so they are well ahead of the game.

If you’re educating, nurturing and helping a prospect develop a solution to their problem before your competitors get involved you’re setting the rules and maximising your chances of winning. As they say, never answer an RFP that you didn’t help write.

Build trusted relationships before engaging sales

Thanks to the internet prospects today have more information than ever. By the time they call you, a prospect may have completed up to 70% of the buyer’s journey – if they call you at all. Even if they do call you, they will have formed preconceived ideas – often incorrect – about you. What can you do about this?

The buyer’s journey begins when a company identifies a business problem that’s critical enough that they have to do something about.

Once upon a time they relied on sales people to provide information that they couldn’t get anywhere else about potential solutions . Now they are inundated with information. Once they couldn’t get enough information, now they have too much – so they need guidance to sort through the noise.

By holding their hand and ethically leading them through the buyer’s journey we build a long term, trusted relationship with them. We learn their issues, solicit their opinions, identify their key drivers, timeframes and processes, understand their perspective and priorities and educate them on how you can help solve their business issue – all before your sales people engage with them.

Our ARM Business Platform helps us to build trusted relationships with prospects as soon as they begin their buying journey so by the time they are ready to talk to a sales person they are already educated, nurtured and trust that our Clients have the capability to help them.

If you sit and wait for prospects to come to you they might never show up. Many won’t – they’ll go elsewhere and you’ll be none the wiser. Even if they do call you they will have done most of the work themselves – so you’re offering them less value and you’ll probably have to fight to correct their  inaccurate preconceptions about you. When we go to them on your behalf and help them solve their issues, rather than reacting to them, you become a valued partner, By the time your sales people engage with them the job is already half done.