CHAPTER 16

New Business Development Selling Is Not Complicated

If you picked up this book believing that prospecting and new business development were shrouded in some sort of mystery, I hope that I’ve debunked that myth for you. There’s no great mystery, and those who are most successful keep it incredibly simple.

Proactively pursuing new business is not complicated. Prospective customers have needs. We have potential solutions for those needs. When charged with developing new business from new accounts, our job is to engage with potential customers to determine if what we sell aligns with what these prospects need. It’s that simple.

New customers are the lifeblood of most businesses. If there were a continuous steady stream of warm leads pouring into sales organizations, salespeople would thrive by just reacting and responding to this abundant supply of inbound demand. But in 100 percent of the businesses I have seen, that simply is not the case. To grow sales and acquire new accounts, we must become successful at prospecting and developing new business.

There is No Magic Bullet

I love meeting new salespeople or kicking off a relationship with a new client’s sales team. Usually, salespeople are thankful for a sympathetic ear, and most of them are looking forward to getting some help. There is often a sense of excitement that someone from the outside has arrived to share some new tricks. It doesn’t take long before the questions start flowing my way:

  “What’s the most powerful closing technique guaranteed to work every time?”

  “Can you help us with selling to committees comprised of more women than men?”

  “When the prospect is scheduling three competitors for presentations, is it best to go first or last? Does it make a difference if the presentations are on a Friday?”

  “What’s your secret sauce for…?”

You’re smiling, but those are sincere questions that salespeople want answers to. My standard reply is that these are all interesting questions that we may get to, at some point (not likely). But I’ve got my own questions that are probably a more helpful place for us to start:

  I’d like you to show me your actual prospect lists. Pull them up or print me a copy of your specific list of target accounts. Can you please tell me the strategic thinking that led to creating these lists?

  Now tell me about your account focus. How much time and effort have you invested working that list?

  Let me hear your sales story. What are you saying to prospects about what you do? How do you talk about your business?

  Let’s talk about the phone. How much time are you spending proactively calling prospects? How’s that working for you?

  Outline for me your structure for meeting with a prospect. How do you conduct sales calls?

  How much of your time is spent managing existing customers or responding to service issues, as compared with the amount of time you’re dedicating to proactive selling?

  Grab your pipeline report. Can you please tell me about the volume of opportunities you’re working and how you are investing time across deals in various stages of the sales cycle?

  You’ve got a written business plan, right? Pull it out. What are your strategies for opening new accounts and what key sales activities have you committed to?

The resulting discomfort from my blunt questions speaks volumes as to why so many salespeople underperform when it comes to developing new business. They want help running trick plays but are not interested in the basics, like blocking and tackling. The truth is that there are no secret sales moves. There is no magic bullet. As badly as we all want one, it does not exist.

New Sales Success Results from Executing the Basics Well

Chapter 4 laid out the basic framework for a successful new business sales attack. As you wrap up your time with this book, I strongly encourage you to revisit the New Sales Driver framework and work to nail it cold:

THE NEW SALES DRIVER

A. Select targets.

B. Create and deploy weapons.

C. Plan and execute the attack.

It all starts with targets (Chapter 5). This is the first step because it is impossible to launch a new business development effort without knowing who we’re going to attack. A well-chosen, finite, focused, written, and workable list is essential and allows us to shift our attention to the weapons we will be firing at these targets.

When headed into battle, it really helps to have powerful weapons (Chapters 6 and 7). Not only do we need these weapons within reach, but we must be proficient at firing them! No weapon is more critical or more frequently deployed than our sales story. Nothing will increase your personal sales effectiveness more than sharpening your story. I challenge you to review Chapter 8 and make the effort to run through the sales story exercise to draft your own power statement. Having a compelling, differentiating, client-focused story will increase your confidence and empower you to engage prospects.

It’s also critical to master the proactive phone call and face-to-face sales call (Chapters 9 through 11). Sound fundamentals early in the sales process dramatically improve your chances of winning down the road. Too many salespeople gloss over these mundane elements of prospecting, preferring to focus on the more glamorous aspects like delivering their presentation.

And while on the topic of my (least) favorite word, please remember that discovery must always precede presentation. By sales law, a first meeting shall never be a presentation, and nowhere is it written that presentations must be monologues. Dare to be different and break out of the mold. Be more like Jerry, the kitchen guy who cut a hole in my wall without permission, and less like Frank, who bored the boardroom with pictures of his company’s buildings, client logos, and business processes.

Above all else, you’ve got to take control of your calendar so that you’re in a position to plan and execute the new business attack (Chapter 14). Powerful weapons and strategic targets mean nothing if you don’t fly the mission. Articulate your sales plan and commit to the necessary level of proactive new business development activity. Sales is a verb, at least in this book. Get into action and execute a high-frequency attack. Beware of the gravitational pull of account management and customer service. Stop playing good corporate citizen and selfishly guard your selling time. Block off chunks in your calendar for prospecting, and treat those blocks of time as if they’re as important as a meeting with a CEO.

Finally, keep in mind that buyers instinctively resist salespeople. We must sell against that reality on a daily basis. Run every aspect of selling through the filter that forces you to ask how the buyer will perceive you. Your approach, voice tone, word choices, and method for conducting phone and face-to-face sales calls—all contribute to whether buyers will raise or lower their sales defensive shields.

Thank you for reading. I sincerely wish you the best of success in your pursuit of new customers. You can keep up with me on Twitter @mike_weinberg or on my blog: newsalescoach.com.

Now go forth and sell.