Mining your account deck for gold
What profile are you?
In my 15 years in Inside Sales, I’ve noticed many reps struggle with how to approach their ledger. To find the great opportunities in any account deck, we have to be like a miner looking for gold. Whether you have 300 or 3,000 leads in your book, only a small percentage will likely be gold, quite a few will be fool’s gold, and most will just be rocks.
Most of us fit into one of these four Gold-Miner profiles. Which one are you?
- If I don’t see the gold on the surface, I throw the rock
- I’m going to bring all the rocks in case any have gold.
- I will methodically study each rock one at a time
- I don’t really have a strategy and I’m calling my book in alphabetical order
Let’s agree now that #4 should not be an option. Don’t worry if that’s you, at least half of our customers have flats doing this when we walk in. If they don’t give you a strategy, you’re likely to start at the top, right? Don’t worry, you can make a quick change today that will help you enjoy your work much better tomorrow (see The Quick Sort).
When I made sales, I found myself in category #1. #3 before you understand it. And while I love great tools like ZoomInfo, LinkedIn, and InsideView, I don’t recommend using them right away. Just take the time to do your research when you smell the gold (see below: Category A and B leads). The other exception is when you’re working on high-value strategic deals or calling decision-makers you might connect with today. In the meantime, we’ll bookmark the account first, yes, even before searching the web for them!
Finally, being the #1 and #2 Miner Profiles can work for a while, but only if we have a manager that doesn’t require territory management, or a marketing department that buys unlimited leads or drives extraordinary inbound traffic per month. the one who gets credit. It must be nice… and it probably won’t last!
If you agree that these are not winning strategies in the long run, here are three simple ideas to start mining gold from your book more efficiently:
- quick sort
- qualify first
- Categorize your accounts
quick sort
This is especially good when you are just starting out. List the top five “at a glance” attributes of a good lead that you can find in your CRM. Then sort your book to make a prioritized call list. Ready! Attack your book from above. Here are some of my favorite quick qualifiers:
- A purchase history (order by $ or # of purchases)
- A history of marketing/service (you already know us)
- Multiple Decision Makers Listed – More Chance to Win!
- I have knowledge in the industry or territory: easier relationship and success stories.
qualify first
Like the adage “pay yourself first,” make your first call to qualify the account instead of trying to reach the decision maker. When you split your work into two parts (qualifying and THEN contacting), you’ll get better results faster and have more fun! I promise, it will also save you months of wasted bookmarking on accounts with zero gold.
The key is to think of two or three easy questions that anyone in the company can answer; these will give him the clues he needs. Your qualifiers likely have something to do with the company’s size, growth, direction, or activity.
Phrase your question in a simple, non-threatening way that is in your customer’s language, NOT yours, and something that a receptionist, service representative, or sales representative can answer. In other words, if you need to know how often people use hotels (because you’re selling a travel service), don’t ask how many nights/month management stays in hotels, ask if there are people, “On the road a lot.” …Go out more often than inside?” It’s not always foolproof, but you’ll quickly determine if you smell like gold or if the account is just a rock, and you’ll avoid wasting months trying to connect with a decision maker only to find out you’ve been walking around with a bunch of worthless rocks weighing you down. . Try something like,
“How many people work there?”
“Do you all work at that place?”
“Does everyone have a computer?”
now categorize
A good categorization system dictates how hard you work for gold. Try a simple ABCD system, where A has the highest revenue/earning potential (however you are compensated) and D is dead.
When you’re done with the qualifying call, categorize the account and start working smarter. This will take over your quick sort method now that you have real data to use. Sort your book by rating category and try the “A” accounts at least 10 times (and use those web research tools!), the “B” accounts at least six times, and the “C” accounts at least three times. Remember, on average, inside salespeople stop calling decision makers after two or three calls. Be the smart one who doesn’t throw away gold and doesn’t weigh himself down carrying a bunch of stones.
Happy mining!