Introduction

Winning New Business For Dummies introduces the concept of a methodology-driven approach to the science of winning sustainable new business; it ensures that you develop and maintain a constant stream of new business opportunities, along with how to close the deal.

New business is the lifeblood of every company, and in this book you’re guided through the key principles of how to go about securing more than your fair share of new business success.

Having spent many years at the sharp end of winning new business, I wrote this book as a one-stop reference guide to help salespeople, both those with experience as well as those who are new to the role. It’s intended to walk you through the steps and guide you around the pitfalls of what I believe is the world’s greatest profession — winning new business.

About This Book

This book is intended to be a useful reference guide that you can read from cover to cover if you want to, or you can dip into the relevant chapters when you need a bit of help or inspiration. The book’s easy-access organization means that you can simply and quickly get your hands on information about whatever element of winning new business you’re looking for.

Winning New Business For Dummies isn’t an academic, theoretical book, but one that is written from the heart by a real practitioner who gets his hands dirty in the new business trenches on an everyday basis and aims to share real-life experiences rather than highbrow theory that leaves you wondering what you actually need to do. The watch word in writing this book was practicality. In this book, you discover information presented in an easy-to-digest manner that will improve your customer-facing skills and set you on the right road to deliver real and sustainable new business success by making use of a structured approach to new business.

Some chapters include sidebars (shaded boxes) that expand on the core information in that chapter, should you want to explore a topic in more detail, but you can easily skip these sidebars and still get the information you need to master winning new business. (Along the same lines, feel free to skip anything with the Technical Stuff icon, too.)

Within this book, you may note that some web addresses break across two lines of text. If you’re reading this book in print and want to visit one of these web pages, simply key in the web address exactly as it’s noted in the text, pretending as though the line break doesn’t exist. If you’re reading this as an e-book, you’ve got it easy — just click the web address to be taken directly to the web page.

Foolish Assumptions

In writing this book, I made a number of assumptions about the typical reader. I assumed

• You’re currently working in a new business sales role and want to improve your prospect of securing a more regular flow of new business success.
• You’re brand new to the role of winning new business, perhaps even an owner or manager of SMEs (small and medium-sized enterprises), and you need a reference point to give you a head start in delivering successful winning new business campaigns.

When you pick up this book, you don’t need to have previous sales experience — in fact, quite the opposite. If you’re brand new to the profession, you can read and quickly act on the information presented here.

This book is intended to give you solid, practical advice on how to actually deliver new business. The working title was “Get Up and Sell Something,” which sums up the approach very well.

Icons Used in This Book

Throughout this book, you see these icons used:

The Tip icon highlights specific pointers that will help you win new business more easily and effectively.

The Remember icon flags important pieces of information that are critical to getting a good understanding of the topic at hand.

The advice you find with this icon can prevent headaches when it comes to winning new business.

The text attached to this icon may not be crucial to your success in winning new business, but it may be interesting to you nonetheless.

Beyond the Book

In addition to what you’re reading right now, this product comes with a free access-anywhere Cheat Sheet. To get this Cheat Sheet, simply go to www.dummies.com and search for “Winning New Business For Dummies Cheat Sheet” in the search box. Take a look at the articles in the Cheat Sheet to gain some more understanding on winning new business.

You can find additional information on the winning new business methodology on my website at www.nineteen58.com, which also contains a number of blog articles that expand on various topics related to winning new business.

Where to Go from Here

Feel free to just dive into the book at any chapter that catches your attention. You don’t need to necessarily read this book from cover to cover before you implement any of the learnings. It’s not linear, so feel free to jump around the content to make it work for you.

Chapter 9 on prospecting effectively and Chapter 19 on qualifying potential business contain the real keys to winning new business success, so they’re as good a place as any to start reading.