Prospecting. Cold calling. New business development. Whatever phrase you use to describe it, most sellers and business developers don’t love it even during the best of times.
When outbound business development isn’t a consistent habit, we often don’t feel the pain right away. It usually arrives further down the road, times like now, when our pipeline may be weak, or we missed a significant pursuit opportunity. In professional services, this is especially evident. The balance between business development and delivery, coupled with long sales cycles makes our efforts even more complex.
In this article, I’ll share strategies I’ve used to open the door and connect with decision makers. Depending on your sell cycles and deal complexity, you may need to adjust how you apply these ideas to your book of business.
Choose Your Focus & Targets
Selecting focus verticals will accelerate the growth of your book of business. Think of it as selecting a “major” and then perhaps a “minor.” Verticalization offers several benefits:
- One or two cornerstone clients in a vertical will accelerate client acquisition in that same vertical more quickly and more effectively.
- Your efforts in prospecting, marketing, and thought leadership creation have lower opportunity cost and higher return on investment.
- Gaining traction in one or two key verticals provides the runway to then spin off into other verticals if you choose.
Below are several questions to help you strategize on your vertical.
- In looking at your client set, where do you see vertical majors and minors?
- In which verticals have you already established expertise?
- What verticals do you have a passion for or an interest in going deeper into?
- What verticals will have the greatest opportunities in them over the next three years?
Consider the following: First, are you going to focus your efforts on getting deeper into existing clients, or are you going to focus efforts on net-new prospects? They both have value; we need both in our pipeline.
One of your early steps will be creating and prioritizing target prospects. You might prioritize them on attributes like value to your business, value to you personally, growth potential, geography, diversification of services, strength of relationships, and trigger events affecting them. Sell cycle can also play an important role. For example, the timeliness of a triggering event could upgrade their priority. Also, can you find targets that are more specialized or verticalized – where there may be less competition and more openness to building relationships? I recommend reviewing your prospects consistently, as priorities can shift, and disruptions can happen.
Conversion metrics are next. Your metrics will likely begin with strategies like earning a first meeting, progressing a relationship for more introductions into the prospect, or perhaps specific opportunities identified. A conversion might be getting them signed up for your thought leadership platform. For all of your target prospects, you’ll want to identify key conversion points and the level of investment to make.
Strategies to open doors
Let’s talk about some strategies for opening doors. There are four that I use regularly, and they’re a mix of short term and long term.
Triggering events: This is a near-term prospecting strategy. Triggering events are anything that can cause a significant change to the prospect’s or client’s business – it signifies a time sensitive need for you to connect. Let’s say you have Google Alerts set up for your Top 25 Prospects, or you are using a tool like LinkedIn Sales Navigator. You can stay ahead of the curve on this. Annual reports and investor briefs, changes in the Board of Directors, leadership changes, company issues and initiatives, and industry issues can all signal potential triggers.
Strategic partners and centers of influence: These are my go-to groups for accelerating my prospecting efforts, whether it’s a new prospect or an existing client where I’m looking to expand. These partners and COIs can be inside or outside of the prospect’s organization. For your top tier prospects, who are your strategic partners and centers of influence that may be able to connect you? One tip is to always give your partners and COIs the words to introduce you; don’t leave this to chance.
Thought leadership into leads: If your organization creates thought leadership pieces, or if you create them yourself, this strategy is ideal. They can be sent to prospects with specific follow-up, they can be sent before or after a first meeting, or they can serve as an ongoing keep in touch strategy.
Forums: One successful strategy for me has been to create forums, with the goal of providing content, conversation, and a network. This is not a sales pitch. If you’re building a book of business in a specific physical geography, this strategy can work very well in person, or adapted virtually in light of current world events. I led these forums in multiple cities quarterly, and I had attendance from dozens of decision makers. Over time, this strategy led to qualified opportunities from virtually every company that attended.
Even though we are experiencing extreme disruption in the current environment, smart sales strategies can help you break through. If you use the prospecting tips above, you’ll reach more decision makers… and make a positive impact on your book business.