Granted, your sales strategy includes to whom you sell, what you sell to them (ultimately your value proposition and results), and how you sell to them (channels and styles). But, whatever your sales strategy includes, your top priority should be on profitable sales … and if you are in growth mode, then profitable sales growth.
At the least, you should be continuously focusing your time and effort on a few (three or four) activities that contribute most to profitable sales. You should aggressively minimize or eliminate activities that distract you from this focus. And, if you want to grow, then also focus on finding your best growth opportunities.
One high-contributing activity is your selling into other opportunity areas of your most valuable “Grade A” clients. Who are your most profitable clients? In what ways can you find new work and/or more work with them, leading to more of similar or even higher value sales? Time spent here can be very profitable.
Another high-contributing activity is your classifying and updating where your customers are on a scale ranging from Client to Partner to Advocate, where Advocate is the highest position, and then doing whatever it takes to evolve your clients to being an Advocate to allow them to strengthen your sales results with your prospects. It will be time well spent.
In contrast, your lower-level lead generation activities, e.g., deploying a presence via social media or mounting an advertising campaign or putting on a trade show exhibit, are less important, although not unimportant. Just give your higher-value activities priority. Delegate, if you need more time to focus on them.
Try focusing more on how to sell better than just how many units to sell within any given time frame. Numbered goal setting is counter-productive as you spend more time worrying about reaching your numbers than on improving your selling, which will make your numbers grow as a result. Consistently refine your criteria on who best to sell to and how to better qualify prospects to determine their fit. Time spent on the wrong prospects and/or poorly qualified prospects is not profitable. All in all, your being busy does not mean you are making progress. Be busy with selling better to the right prospects.
Contact: Chris@ChristopherAnacker.com