| Did you ever hear the story, "Drop in me | | | | searching through several industries - medical, |
| Dubuck(Iowa?), and in 2 days I'll have 5 new | | | | defense, instrumentation and business machines, |
| customers for your new product or service!". The | | | | wecame up with a list of 75 companies to be |
| idea behind the story is that a real sales pro can be | | | | contacted. We were quite confident that within that |
| put in any new situation and within a short period of | | | | group ofcompanies, 5 companies would stand out as |
| time, sell product and start making a difference. | | | | the ones to work with. Remember, timing is |
| Well, the story is over 30 years old(I actually don't | | | | everything. |
| remember the specifics.) And times have changed. | | | | I reminded Roger that even though he may be selling |
| Businesses are bigger and more sophisticated. You | | | | for the best and a very competitive sheet metal |
| have to make sure you are adding the right type of | | | | company in the area, most companies are not |
| customers. Meaningful customers. | | | | necessarily looking for a new vendors. The complex |
| Recently a friend of mine was hired as a sales | | | | sale has a longer sales cycle than ever before. So it is |
| engineer for a job shop sheet metal manufacturer. | | | | very important to find the prospect that is most |
| He had just relocated to a new area of the country. | | | | likely to select your company. |
| He was hired by this company to create | | | | The key strategy for success was to limit(10 at the |
| MEANINGFUL SALES. That is, find accounts that can | | | | most) his prospects to the ones that are most likely |
| contribute at least $500,000 in sales to his new | | | | to do business with him. And then find reasons to |
| company. (Current revenues of the company | | | | talk with them, meet with them, mail them stuff. So |
| exceeded $25 million, any new account less than | | | | that when they are looking for a new vendor, they |
| $500,000 wouldn't contribute to profits.) | | | | only think of you. |
| So he called me to discuss strategies about attacking | | | | If you make your target list too big, you'll never |
| the territory. After reviewing the company's core | | | | spend the time with each prospect to ever gain |
| competencies, we defined who should be our prime | | | | enough MEANINGFUL SALES . |
| TARGETS. The list was then developed. After | | | | |