Philosopher, essayist, poet and novelist George Santayana is credited with penning, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” And the following quote is generally attributed to Albert Einstein (although no substantive evidence exists that he wrote or spoke the statement), “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.”
What do these two famous quotes have to do with our business to business sales as we roll into 2018? Well, as it turns out, plenty! As a year winds to a close we typically focus our attention on the coming year. But if we don’t take the time to examine 2017 with a critical eye we will likely add to the validity of the above quotes. For example:
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Did you set a target of ‘x’ number of prospecting attempts per day/week/month in 2017? If so, how did that work out? If not as well as you hoped, are you going to amp up your volume in 2018? Or, are you going to look at the challenge from a different perspective?
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How many proposals turned into sales/projects in 2017? What was your close percentage? 20%? 30%? 50%? The old method of selling suggests that to get more sales you need to generate more proposals. After all, if you closed 50% of 25 proposals, then wouldn’t you double your business if you did 50 proposals?
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Finally, did you take every opportunity that came along? Did you regret some of the customers you did business with? Did you wish you had the bandwidth to accept projects from customers or prospects, but you just couldn’t open up enough time in your schedule? How are you going to select your customers in 2018?
As I’ve written in prior articles, we know that sellers that define their ideal customer and then use that ideal customer profile as a scoring mechanism for targeting new customers experience three very positive things: 1) they increase the size of their deals, 2) they reduce their sales cycle, and 3) they increase their close rate. As long as you are in a demand generation business, this is true whether you’re a large business, a small business, or even a solopreneur.
So before you rush headlong into 2018 with a plan for redoubling your efforts, take the time to do at least the following:
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Create a profile of your ideal customer
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Apply a scoring mechanism to understand if a prospect is a match to your ideal customer profile
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Limit, to the best of your ability (I realize we all need customers) your prospecting efforts to those that most closely match your ideal customer profile
It sounds logical and obvious. It’s not. People have been talking about defining and selling to the ideal customer for years. Yet, the overall percentage of deals in the pipeline that close, across all sizes of sellers and across all industries, is still only between 15 – 25%. Seems to me that we’re not walking the talk.
Let’s not forget the past nor keep doing the same thing over and over and HOPING for a different outcome.
