Dilemma: “I am finding it tough to drum up new business because my thoughts and energy are on those clients that I’m waiting to close.”
Solution: There are several aspects to this dilemma. The first ones that come to mind are … portfolio and nurturing. As a professional sales person, consider managing your sales pipeline like you manage your financial portfolio. The goal is to maintain a balanced portfolio:
- Money in your wallet – short term deals with well-developed need and a sense of urgency, poised to close near term
- Liquid assets – mid-term deals that that are developing, and
- Long term assets – bigger, more complex longer range deals.
More can be said but as you think about this analogy more insights will come to mind.
Nurturing is developing a systematic way to help “those clients that you are waiting to close” to feel the energy of your business without YOU having to do it personally. Customers and clients need continual contact, new information and expansion of their thinking. Assuming that you understand the sales process for your business, examine what you do today and see how this can be done by others or done with a little creative automation. The goal of nurturing is to educate – make the gap between their current situation and your proposed solution important and urgent to address. Additionally, the goal of nurturing is to build confidence – establish credibility and proof that your solution will meet or exceed their expectations.
You can DIY (do-it-yourself) or consider working with a sales & marketing consultant like KickStart Alliance to help you balance your sales portfolio or design your nurturing program. First step is an internal analysis – determine what’s working and what’s not.