The Ultimate Strategy to Find High Value Prospects

GEMS HIDDEN

HIDDEN GEMS: THE ULTIMATE STRATEGY TO FIND HIGH VALUE PROSPECTS 2

Here’s the Deal

As a seller, it’s never been tougher than it is today. Stressed out corporate decision makers zealously protect their schedules, not wanting to waste one iota of time meeting with a salesperson who doesn’t add value.

Instead, they’d much rather go online, research their problems and search for options before talking with a salesperson. Recently CEB found that nearly 60% of the buying decision transpired before making contact with potential vendors.

That sure doesn’t help you. Your quota keeps getting higher. It takes more and more effort to connect with a prospective buyer. And even when you do, they try to quickly brush you off like a pesky mosquito. It’s enough to drive you crazy. And working harder isn’t getting you results either.

But the truth is your prospects will stay with the status quo for as long as humanly possible. It’s not because they love their current situation. It’s simply that making no decision is easier than changing. And, when they’re crazy-busy, that’s their default setting.

So what’s the answer? Timely sales intelligence. The kind that helps identify high value opportunities, shortens sales cycles and minimizes competitive battles.

It all starts with knowing who you want to do business with. Specifically, which companies you’d like to land as clients. Then, it’s about being smart and knowing when they might be most amenable to taking action. The key? Leveraging trigger events to find these hidden gems.

Effective use of sales intelligence increases revenue productivity per sales rep by 17%. ~ CSO Insights

* Use Guidelines: This eBook is covered by the Creative Commons License * Please share it with attribution & this link: http://bit.ly/find-gems

HIDDEN GEMS: THE ULTIMATE STRATEGY TO FIND HIGH VALUE PROSPECTS 3

The Sales Catalyst

The day I first learned about trigger events is etched indelibly in my memory. I was developing a sales workshop for up-and-coming lawyers at a prestigious law firm. In the process, I interviewed the top revenue-generating attorneys. One by one, they told me that the secret to their success was gray hair, law school buddies in decision-making positions and customer service.

While all that may be true, it was not replicable for the young lawyers. Finally, in total frustration, I asked the last attorney I interviewed this question: “Is there anything else you do to get business?”

“Well,” said Craig. “One thing. I track intellectual property settlements across the country. If I see one that could impact my current or future clients, I give them a call, ask if they’ve seen it, and suggest we get together to talk about ramifications for their organization. It usually works.”

Brilliant. Simply brilliant. Craig knew exactly what caused his clients to re-evaluate their status quo. After hearing about Microsoft’s lost case, they wanted to make sure they were on sound legal ground.

In short, he’d discovered a trigger event that catalyzed change. I immediately saw the potential for every salesperson. I was hooked. And, since that day many years ago, I’ve been a leading proponent of leveraging trigger events—actionable sales intelligence—to grow your business.

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Value of Trigger Events Today research shows the profound impact of this vital sales intelligence on the sales process.

• CSO Insights found that effective use of sales intelligence results in a 17% increase in revenue productivity/rep.

• Aberdeen Group discovered that companies that support sales teams with sales intelligence tools see a 28.4% increase in year-over-year revenue.

• Additionally, Aberdeen Group found that 81% of companies that used a sales intelligence platform saw significant yearly gains in team quotas.

Leveraging sales intelligence yields compelling results. And, the key driver of these results is a trigger event that alters a prospect’s priorities. By using them effectively, you can initiate more opportunities, deepen existing relationships, shorten your sales cycles and minimize competition. Let’s dig in and learn more about these invaluable, but often hidden, sales gems.

What are Trigger Events? If trigger event thinking is new to you, it’s important to broaden your understanding of these catalytic agents first. That means we need to take a look at the plethora of “trigger events” that can create a ripple effect within an organization. Here are just a few of the major categories:

• New Leadership. Anytime a new executive is brought onboard, they’re expected to deliver results quickly. Change is always in the air. Depending on what you know about the organization and position (e.g., CFO, VP Marketing), you can infer what might be forthcoming.

• Financial Announcements. If an organization has missed their earnings expectations or sales growth is lagging, expect to see big changes in the upcoming quarter. Conversely, if growth was better than expected, watch for new initiatives to support their expansion.

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• Mergers, Acquisitions, Partnerships. With these types of activities, organizations re-evaluate many of their existing relationships to determine what works best for the new direction.

• Strategic Initiatives. When new corporate directives become a priority, there’s a shift virtually overnight in what decision makers are concerned about. They need to quickly determine if their status quo is sufficient to help them achieve their new objectives.

• Market Challenges. This broad category can include competitive activity, changing customer demographics, economic turbulence, rising gas prices and a host of other factors that can both positively or negatively impact future business.

• Legal/Compliance. Any changes in government regulations or corporate litigation can cause an organization to undertake immediate action.

• Reorganizations. Tumultuous restructurings change priorities and shift alliances virtually overnight. Existing business relationships are all in jeopardy too.

These are some of the biggies. But there are also a whole slew of other trigger events that can catalyze change. They’re not earth shattering. But, if you’re aware of them, you can get your foot in the door to have a good discussion with a person who’s finally open to new ideas or vendors.

Even More Triggers Here are some additional triggers that could potentially create opportunities for you. And this time, you’ll get some ideas on how to use them.

• New offerings. If you’re in marketing, this should get you excited. New products or services need lots of support to quickly gain acceptance.

• Relocations. Anytime a company is moving, they need tons of new stuff like cabling, technology, furniture, artwork and more.

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• New markets. When a company goes in a new direction, they often lack the internal resources with the requisite expertise.

• Employment changes. Lay-offs can be good if you provide services that will no longer be done in-house.

• New business deals. While landing new clients is great news, getting ready to handle this business can require some changes.

• Real estate and construction. Any organization that’s building something new is in the market for lots of different products and services.

• New funding. When a company gets an infusion of cash, they plan to spend it to achieve their organization’s primary growth objectives.

Starting to see the potential? The key is to not just look at this information as data. It’s to start thinking about what actually happens within an organization when these trigger events happen. And, to see if there’s any way that this event could impact their need to make changes relevant to what you sell.

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Find Your Triggers One way to identify the best triggers for your business is to do an analysis of what kinds of events catalyze changes in your own customer base. Start by taking a look at recent decisions to see if you can find any common themes. Ask: What changes have occurred that loosened the grip of the status quo and caused prospects to consider new options? If possible, review 10-15 recent deals.

If this exercise is challenging for you, come back to it again and again. Once you start thinking about trigger events, you’ll start noticing more of them every day.

Goals & Objectives Issues & Challenges Organizational Changes

Strategic Initiatives External Events Other

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Expand Your Thinking Here’s another way to identify triggers that could create opportunities for your business. Look at the triggers listed on previous pages. Ask yourself these questions:

Trigger: ____________________________________________________________

1. How could this trigger possibly impact what we sell? 2. Could any of their goals, objectives or strategic initiatives

be difficult to achieve with their current status quo? 3. Could this trigger cause them to need any new products/services?

Trigger: ____________________________________________________________

1. How could this trigger possibly impact what we sell? 2. Could any of their goals, objectives or strategic initiatives

be difficult to achieve with their current status quo? 3. Could this trigger cause them to need any new products/services?

Trigger: ____________________________________________________________

1. How could this trigger possibly impact what we sell? 2. Could any of their goals, objectives or strategic initiatives

be difficult to achieve with their current status quo? 3. Could this trigger cause them to need any new products/services?

You might also want to read your local business journal or industry news to identify other possible triggers.

And then, once you know which triggers cause your customers to change from the status quo, you’re going to want to set up a system that automatically alerts you to when these events are happening.

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Keep Up on the Right Stuff

Many trigger events are newsworthy announcements. Companies share much of this information via press releases. They want to be visible. Sometimes the media writes about what’s happening. Or, people on LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter spill the beans about what’s going on. All this is online, waiting to be found. But you don’t want to be inundated with information. Instead, it’s crucial to limit the sales intelligence you receive to the following:

Your Territory Whether you have a geographic territory or sell to a vertical market, you want to be notified whenever one of these newly identified triggers occurs. With this info, you can:

• Proactively reach out to a new prospect with a relevant and timely message. • Engage in an initial conversation with a person who has potential need.

Existing Customers Stay up-to-speed on what’s happening with your important clients: • Ensures you’re aware of anything that could impact your current business. • Enables you to bring your clients helpful ideas to address their changing needs. • Deepens your relationship, builds trust and establishes more credibility.

Targeted Accounts These companies meet your ideal client profile, but you aren’t currently working with them. By tracking what’s happening in their organizations, you’ll be able to:

• Initiate contact when you identify trigger events that could alter their satisfaction with the status quo.

• Demonstrate that you’re a potentially valuable resource by contacting them with ideas that could be helpful to their organization.

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Use this form to consolidate all the sales intelligence you want together.

Sales Intelligence Tracking

1. Triggers: List the specific trigger events you want to track. 2. Customers: Create of list of key customers you want to follow. 3. Targets: Identify targeted companies who meet your ideal client profile.

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Set Up Your System

If you sell to a small number of companies or have a very finite set of trigger events, you can easily manage the data gathering by using Google Alerts. As a sales consultant, it was easy for me to do that for years. I tracked my big clients, my targeted accounts and the phrase “new product launches.”

If you’re in a metro area, your local papers (and their websites) may provide good information too. They know more about the smaller companies in your area than any other resource around.

But things get complicated when you need a steady stream of new prospects. Or, when you’re selling to multiple market segments. Or, when a variety of trigger events can signify a loosening of the status quo.

Then, your inbox gets filled with a gazillion alerts. In many cases, they’re often irrelevant too. You may only want info on one division of GE, but instead, you getting an endless flow of information.

That’s not sales intelligence. That’s sales overwhelm. Using the right technology is a real time-saver that frees you up for more customer-facing activities.

Some examples of paid services include InsideView, DiscoverOrg and OneSource. You can also use free service like Google Alerts and BizJournals.com.

With this type of technology, you can easily build watch lists that involve numerous parameters such as:

• trigger event • company size • industry type • location • business unit • job titles

All this can be delivered to your inbox in an easy-to-read format or directly integrated with your CRM.

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Using Triggers to Get Business

Once you’re alerted to a status-quo loosening trigger event in your territory, it’s time to move into action. Start by deepening your research right away.

• What else can you learn about this company? • What’s their financial situation? What are their objectives? Strategic initiatives? • Who would be the right person(s) to connect with? What can you find out about

them?

Then ask yourself: What impact could my products or services have on their business? How could I help them address these changes? What value could I provide? And think about other similar companies you’ve worked with: What stories could you share? What difference have you made?

Savvy sellers use trigger events to start conversations. That means that you need to put all this info into context so that when you initiate contact, your message is relevant and you sound like a credible resource. Here are two examples to get you thinking.

Example One Bill works in sales for a printing company. There’s nothing tougher than selling a commodity. Everyone already has a vendor they deal with. And, you always end up talking to purchasing. But after 2500+ unreturned voicemails, Bill finally wised up.

What did he do? First of all, he decided to focus his efforts on the restaurant business. He immersed himself learning about menu design, including factors influencing how and what customers ordered. He researched numerous restaurant chains and set up an online alert system. And, when he did, he noticed some very interesting announcements about new cuisines, summer specials or expansions into new markets.

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Mmmm, Bill thought. That means they’ll need new menus. So, he put on his thinking cap about what he could do to help them. When he came up with some ideas, he reached out to the Vice President of Marketing. Typically, he started with an email similar to this:

Last week I read about the new mouth-watering dessert list your restaurant is launching this fall. I also picked up one of your menus at the local store so I could get a better feel for what you’re currently doing.

I have some ideas about how to redo the menus to help you drive more dessert sales. They’re a bit unusual, but I really think they’ll help you achieve your goals.

Are you available next Tuesday afternoon for a short conversation?

Not surprisingly, this email message combined with similarly worded follow-up ones, elicited a number of conversations with the Marketing VPs. And, because they liked his fresh thinking, they’d instruct their purchasing people to do business with Bill’s company. Please note, his competitors were powerless against this approach.

Example Two Jana works in the financial services industry as a lender to large corporations. It’s an extremely competitive market; every single megabank is fighting to get this business. She knows exactly which accounts she’s going after and who the primary decision makers are for her services.

But several years ago, Jana’s company realized that it was hard to gauge when to initiate contact. They wanted to get their people in, talking to CFOs and treasurers at times when they might have a strong need for a creative funding source. After analyzing the various trigger events that created new opportunities for them, they identified these primary factors: mergers, acquisitions, expansion announcements, new product launches and management changes.

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Rather than bog their salespeople down trying to track all these elements, sales leadership chose to use InsideView, an automated alert system that delivers updates on a regular basis.

Does it work? Jana sure thinks so. Recently she got an alert about an energy company announcing a major oil field expansion. Knowing this meant they’d need to invest in new pumping stations and more, she immediately reached out to them with a very simple message that essentially said:

I just read about your oil field expansion. I have some ideas on how to finance your infrastructure needs that you might find interesting. Let’s set up a time to talk.

Because her message was timely and relevant, the CFO agreed to meet. (That in itself is a coup!) In their discussion, it became clear that her ideas didn’t quite mesh with this particular project. However, the CFO thought it would be a perfect fit for their sister company, a natural gas utility.

The result? Ultimately, she landed a $50 million loan. This deal could easily have gone to their incumbent lender. But Jana has a nose for news. She knows it creates opportunities that didn’t exist before. And, she knows how to write messages that pique her prospect’s curiosity and open new doors.

Most importantly, Jana knows that sales is all about relationships. She’s constantly searching for ways to keep in touch and provide value to her prospects and her clients. Trigger events provide her one more opportunity to do just that.

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Netting it Out

Selling via trigger events is not meant to replace your existing prospecting process. It’s imperative that you still target and go after your ideal customers.

Instead, think of trigger events as an ideal augmentation strategy to find those hidden gems. It creates more opportunities for you. And, if you set up a system to do the work for you, your technology partner will alert you when something happens that could create a need for your products or services.

By automating and taking action on trigger events, you can realize the following benefits:

• You’ll speed up your sales cycle. • You’ll slash the time spent gathering sales intelligence. • You’ll increase the quality of leads in your pipeline. • You’ll spend more time on high value prospects. • You’ll discover upsell and cross sell opportunities with existing customers.

Hopefully this book has been a wake-up call to you. To me, it makes all the sense in the world to pursue a trigger event based approach to selling. It ensures timeliness and relevance—and that’s what our customers want from us.

Don’t waste one more day with traditional prospecting. It’s time to start digging for those hidden gems.

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About Jill Konrath

Jill Konrath is the bestselling author of 2 award-winning books: SNAP Selling (#1 Amazon bestseller) and Selling to Big Companies, a Fortune magazine “must read.”

Jill is also a frequent speaker at sales conferences and kick-off meetings. Sharing her fresh sales strategies, she helps salespeople to speed up new customer acquisition and win bigger contracts. Her clients include IBM, GE, Microsoft, Wells Fargo, Staples and numerous mid-market firms.

Most recently, Jill has been recognized for these achievements:

• 2012 Sales Hall of Fame Inductee • Top 3 Sales & Marketing Thought Leaders (2010–2013) • Top 5 Most Influential People in Sales Lead Management. (2009–2012) • Top 21 Sales Stars, Success magazine • 25 Influential Leaders in Sales • Top 25 Sales Influencers for 2012

Over 100,000 sellers read her weekly newsletter and blog. Plus, she’s got a great website with tons of free sales resources on it. Make sure to check it out!

Contact Jill via email: jill@jillkonrath.com or phone: 651-429-1922

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