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Guest post by: Kendra Lee Become an Author

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As a seller in the SMB market space, you want to target groups of companies where you have the best opportunity to get business in the door. You cannot afford to waste time pursuing all the companies in your territory. Rather, you want to identify the groups of companies that will require the least amount of times and money to get the highest return for your lead generation efforts. Those are called your "best odds" target markets.

It is just as important to understand where you do not have a good market fit as it is to understand where you do have a good fit. Sellers often neglect to define their "best-odds" opportunities, costing them valuable time in their sales process. Knowing your "best-odds" characteristics makes it simple to target only those companies you believe need your offerings and to quality leads as they come in the door.

Examples of "best-odds" target market characteristic might include:

Year to year revenue growth, i.e. 11-17%
Specific annual company revenue attainment, i.e. $300-750M
Industry
Number of employees
Location of the company
Type of supply or distribution channel
Attitude or culture of the organization
IT install base - hardware, software or services
Competitive alignment
Solution alignment
Based on the "best-odds" characteristic, you can determine where to find the companies that match what you are looking for. Since a contact list determines 40% of a seller's success, it is important to have a good list. Very often companies have prospect lists that marketing has purchased for its marketing campaigns. If you have a marketing department, make it your first stop for a good list. If not, use Google, Hoovers, LinkedIn or other on-line tools to build a list based on your criteria.

Some alternative ways to develop good lists:

Pick-up business cards when you attend an event
Call an association aligned with your target market and purchase their list - or join and gain access to member names for free
Research industry articles online for possible contact names
Explore competitors' websites for their customers' names
Watch what companies your customer contacts move to when they take new jobs
Analyze job sites such as Monster.com for openings of positions you sell to, or in the department you sell to, such as IT
Once you have an initial list you can further refine your "best-odds" target market to identify top accounts to target within the segment based on characteristics such as:

A specific business initiative
Supplier diversity objectives
Cultural fit with your company
Size of the organization
Propensity to purchase services such as your own, or to use outside providers
With such a specialized list you can develop custom messages for use across the refined group. These highly customized messages will quickly catch attention where there is a need an improve your probability of getting in the door with a higher percentage of SMB companies.

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