It does feel that spring has arrived! Whilst walking my dog today, I spotted new green leaves bursting out on the willow trees and the daffodils are a blaze of colour.
What spring does bring is new beginnings. Over the past year, we have delivered Sales Strategy and Sales Technique workshops for some fascinating start-up businesses courtesy of the corporate accelerator scheme LMarks who are innovation specialists and early stage investors.
As these entrepreneurs begin on their journey one of their main concerns is how to find clients. However, building a sales pipeline and finding new business is as relevant to established businesses who also need to find new markets and clients, so aren’t wholly reliant on existing clients. To find new customers for your business, start by working through these top tips:
- The first step is to identify the sectors your business is most suited to work with. Although the world is your oyster you need a workable world. Think about 2 maximum 4 industry sectors.
- Next ask, what kind of business within that sector you want to approach? For example, identifying finance as a sector is great, but what strand of finance – insurance, banks or accountancy firms? Then ask, what criteria would make you approach a business based within the sector e.g. size, location, business model, management structure or even whether you have a contact within the business! Now you have set the criteria, research the organisations’ that meet the requirements you have set. This is your lead pool – for both marketing and sales purposes.
- Marketing builds profile, creates awareness, interest and leads and acts as a regular touch point for prospective and existing clients. Re-visit your marketing activity to ensure you are generating interest. Follow up with any incoming leads promptly and effectively. Not following up on a lead is like throwing marketing money and effort down the drain.
- New business can also grow from existing clients. Existing clients trust you, so it is significantly easier to generate additional revenue from an existing client than finding a completely new client. As you already have access to decision makers, new opportunities could come from new projects that may be of interest to them or from developing relationships with new divisions or departments that may also need your help.
- Finally, don’t forget to ask current clients for a referral – they maight be happy to recommend you to another business and contact that they know. As the saying goes, if you don’t ask you won’t get!
I hope these tips have helped you to kick start your sales planning and the process of starting to find new clients this spring – good luck and let us know how you progress!
