Day after the Buzz

What happens the day after the buzz? You’ve built your product, created your services now what?  For most people this is where things start to get chaotic.  If you thought building a product was hard, welcome to the hardest part of your business, selling your product.  Why do I say hardest?  I say hardest because most businesses fail due to lack of sales direction.  A lack of a plan and a lack of a sales strategy contribute to this.  I have seen countless companies fall into this trap.

So; You just launched…What to do next? Who to see? How?

The first step is to create an account entry plan.

Hang on? Sales isnt about strategy is it? Its more about Pitching, Calling people and getting the word out there? Yes and No.  Yes you need to get out there.  No you dont want a scatter gun approach.  You need to know who you are going to sell to, who your customer  is and  how you are going to get to them.

One of the biggest mis-conceptions about sales that most  salespeople have is that sales is NOT strategic.  The truth is that sales IS ONLY strategic.  Everything you do should be strategic.  Every time a potential customer rejects you, it is strategic.  Every communication you have with a customer is strategic. Sales is one huge game.  Make sales strategic.

One of the first tasks you should complete before you pick up the phone is:

An Account Entry Plan:

Details how you are going to approach entering an market, how you are going to enter that market is a great place to start:

Demographics

• What Industry does your customer reside?
• What is your customers Turn-Over in terms of revenue per year?
• What is the size of the organisation who is most likely to buy your product?
• How does your customer do business? What are their distribution channels?
• At what development stage is your customer? Growing? Shrinking? Want to move into new mediums?

Psychographics

• What Vision and Values would your customer hold
• What type of industry reputation would your customer have? are they respected?
• What are the management priorities of your new customers? Do they want to grow?
• What is the management style of these companies? are they flat? top/down?

Enabing Conditions

• What Goals and Objectives would your customers have that fit your product?
• What Challenges Issues or Problems are your customers currently facing?

You can read more about an account entry plan in a great book by Jill Konrath’s called Selling to Big Companies

We will be discussing each area in depth over the next few weeks.  The Next article will focus on your value proposition from answering the above questions.  Please comment.