Are you like Hercule Poirot – do you suspect everybody?

Unfortunately, business is not the same as fictional mystery solving. In business, we have to be precise about who we treat as a suspect customer or client. The more precise we can be, the better we can tailor our proposition, sales and marketing efforts to reach our suspects at the right time with the right message and stand a reasonable chance of, at least, converting our suspect into a prospect.

Those of us who attend networking meetings know that we are more effective when we are able to ask our fellow networkers for a precise type of introduction. The same is true for many other kinds of sales and marketing activities.

Some terms:

Suspects

People or companies who are highly likely to buy our products and services. We may not have spoken to our suspects, but our profiling and targeting of our offer makes us reasonably sure that they are likely to buy from us.

Prospects

These are our qualified sales leads. We have spoken to these people or companies. Because we have had a proper conversation, we know that they are likely to be buying something close to our own offer in the near future.

Why is this important?

• I am sure we all understand the importance of being precise about what we do. Being precise about who you hope to have as customers is just as important.

• It makes it easier for people to send us referrals.

• We are much more likely to spend our precious face-to-face selling time with the right people:

  • Some may have self-qualified themselves as prospective customers.

  • We can qualify our sales leads much more effectively.

• People like to feel special. A well tailored message directed at a particular group of people is much more likely to be effective than a generic product or service pitch.

• Knowing who we are targeting makes our sales and marketing cost a lot less. It is much cheaper to communicate with a small group of people or businesses that have a high probability of needing our products or services than it does when we try to send the same message to everybody – regardless of who they are or what they may be thinking of buying.

This was a guest post by Paul Fileman of SPS who are a national team of proven senior management professionals, passionate about working to help businesses achieve their next level of development and performance. Whether they are facing market changes, financial problems, people/skills issues, or are preparing a major project, they offer dedicated support from a multi-disciplined team of experts.

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