Tweet

Top 3 Ways to Influence Your Bottom Line

Written by: Colleen Stanley

Article Overview: Go out and sell something! Way too many companies adhere to this line of thinking and sell the wrong prospect at the wrong margins. Before you get ready to “sell something,” put some thought into who you should sell to, how to create the opportunity to sell, and what it takes to gain a competitive advantage resulting in a profitable win.

Top 3 Ways to Influence Your Bottom Line

Go out and sell something! Way too many companies adhere to this line of thinking and sell the wrong prospect at the wrong margins. Before you get ready to “sell something,” put some thought into who you should sell to, how to create the opportunity to sell, and what it takes to gain a competitive advantage resulting in a profitable win. Here are three points to consider:

1. Get clear on your ideal client.

Not everyone deserves to be your client. I repeat, not everyone deserves to be your client. What type of prospect does your company serve best? What type of prospect is willing to pay for your expertise and services? There are three basic areas to consider when identifying your ideal client:

- Size of client: Is there a certain dollar volume where you win more business? Does a mid-size company need and value your services more than a Fortune 500?

- Niche: Is there a niche that your solutions serve exceptionally well? Is it possible for you to become the ‘go to’ person in a niche and own it?

- Philosophy: Ideal clients will treat you as a partner, not a vendor. They believe in win-win relationships where everyone makes a fair profit versus nickel and diming over every transaction.

2. Develop a comprehensive prospecting strategy around your ideal client.

Too many companies focus on one type of prospecting activity for generating leads, i.e., they make 25 cold calls a day. A good prospecting strategy is similar to a well-planned financial portfolio. It is diversified and includes a variety of sales activities. Here are three sales activities to incorporate in your business development plan:

- Referral partners: Start meeting with other vendors who call on the same prospects as you but don’t offer a competing product or service. Create a “mini sales team” and help each other grow revenues. Referrals are the most powerful lead source because it places you in front of qualified prospects resulting in shorter sales cycles and bigger deals.

- Associations: The key to associations is getting involved with a committee or running a committee. If you are just attending the meeting, chances are you will get the same results as everyone else attending the meeting…little to none. The reason is simple. People of influence on committees and are more likely and able to provide introductions to your ideal clients when you are more involved.

- Host a workshop: Partner with other organizations and host a workshop that brings prospects into the room. For example, we partner with a local law firm and invite clients to a “Selecting and Hiring Top Sales Talent” workshop. The law firm has clients that need to learn how to build high performing sales teams and we have clients that want to learn about employee law and contracts.

3. Learn how to run a consultative sales call.

If you are still selling features, advantages and benefits, there is a good chance you will be beat by the sales professional employing critical thinking skills and consultative selling skills. The consultative salesperson knows how to “quantify the prospect’s pain” and win deals at higher margins. Today’s prospect expects a couple of things; 1) they want a sales professional that makes their brain “hurt” and, 2) they expect the salesperson to understand the business of business. It is important to show how solutions provided by your product or services incorporate into the prospect’s overall business strategy.

Start influencing that bottom line by executing an effective sales strategy and closing with effective sales tactics.

Related Articles
  Let Go of What You Cannot Control to Increase Sales & Reduce Stress
  How to Establish & Exert Influence
  Cold Calling Works - And It's Fun!
  Leadership Inspiration
  Top 10 Things - The First Minute of a Sales Candidate Interview

Article Tags: business development plan, cold calls, competitive advantage, dollar volume, fortune 500, margins, mid size, niche, nickel, philosophy, prospects, referral partners, referrals, relationships, sales cycles, shorter sales
Referred by: http://www.page1solutions.com



Related Forum Posts
Re: Web Business Podcast is LIVE! :) - Bottom of each post would be good. That way they either already listened to the podcast or they have decided they aren't going to, and might click the ads.
Favourite Business Books - The November PROFIT magazine looks at the favourite business books of Canada's most successful entrepreneurs. The top 4 are: 1) Good to Great by Jim Collins 2) The E-Myth by Michael Gerber 3) Blue Ocean Strategy by W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne 4) How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie
Site after-posting problems? - Don't know if this is happening to me alone, or to everyone, but every time I post a message, instead of my message coming up after a few seconds, I get this error message: Failed sending email :: PHP :: DEBUG MODE Line : 235 File : emailer.php
profit line - I recommended Profit Line to one of my clients and they were not 100% satisfied with the service. Apparently one of the profit line people got a parking ticket while serving my client and then charged them for it. I haven't heard the other side of the story yet but the fact that I recommended them and it didn't work out makes me reluctant to recommend them again.
Cold Calling - Hey Guys, I was wondering if anyone had any experience with hiring someone on straight commission cold calling. I am offering a co-worker 15% of my gross sales to cold call for one month (Line provided by myself) to set up meetings for me in Vancouver. I will be providing him with basic training, he seems pretty eager to try it out, but everyone usually is. Any tips or stories would be great! Thanks, Pete


Share this article with your friends. Fund someone's dream.

Leave a comment below or share on the left and you'll help support entrepreneurs in Africa through our partnership with Kiva. Over $50,000 raised and counting - Please keep sharing! Learn more.

Tweet

Newsletter

Get advice & tips from famous business
owners, new articles by entrepreneur
experts, my latest website updates, &
special sneak peaks at what's to come!

Name:
Email:

Popular Articles

TOP Level Selling

Do You Deserve To Be Happy and Successful?

10 Steps to Excelling at Franchise Sales

Suggestions

Email us your ideas on how to make our
website more valuable! Thank you Sharon
from Toronto Salsa Lessons / Classes for
your suggestions to make the newsletter
look like the website and profile younger
entrepreneurs like Jennifer Lopez.