What’s Your Number?

Sometimes quantity wins

It’s an age-old conundrum: should I try to sell to everybody or only to a few targeted clients? There are valid arguments for both approaches, but it’s not an either/or decision… both are legitimate strategies depending on the circumstances. Here are five reasons to focus on the quantity of prospects in your sales funnel.

Quantity

1. If you’re just starting out in sales, talk to anybody who will listen. This will help you improve your skills, hone your message and find your target audience. For example, if everybody you talk to in small energy companies has no interest in your widget, you can ignore those prospects and focus on more profitable ones.
2. The upside of targeting several clients is that if one doesn’t say yes, you’ve got hundreds of others to sell to.
3. If you’re selling a low-revenue/low-commission product, it doesn’t make financial sense to spend an inordinate amount of time on a single prospect.
4. If your product is a commodity that can be purchased almost anywhere then targeting clients one-on-one is a waste of time. In this case, it’s more about marketing and customer service to drive repeat sales.
5. Quantitative selling can be tracked more easily, which is why more companies focus on this approach. For example, if you talk to ten prospects, you will create four proposals, and one sale. In transactional sales, this creates a sense of order and predictability.

So, now you want to know when it’s better to focus on the quality of prospects instead of the quantity? Stay tuned for tomorrow.

One Moore Thing: Every product or service requires a different approach. There is no “one-size-fits-all” methodology for sales. Take some time to scrutinize what you really provide (everybody overrates the importance of their own offering) and sell accordingly.