MARKETINGPROFS: SALES: STRATEGIC CALLING TO FIND HIDDEN OPPORTUNITIES IN YOUR CURRENT ACCOUNTS
MarketingProfs‘ Ken Valla suggests methods for strategic calling to find hidden sales within your base.
MarketingProfs Excerpt:
What growth strategy is your sales organization pursuing as the economy begins to show signs of recovery?
As the business climate improves, so do the opportunities for shifting from survival mode to growth mode. Frozen budgets are beginning to thaw, and companies are considering to fund projects that were deferred during the height of the recession.
If your organization has been in survival mode over the past year, you may have been focused primarily on protecting your customer base. Now the question is how best to take the first steps toward jump-starting increased sales. Should you invest in higher levels of prospecting activity to expand your customer base? Or is it more productive to seek out hidden opportunities in your current accounts?
It may seem that the quickest path to substantial new business is via new customers. Expanding the base, however, is always expensive, and, at present, it may be more so.
Caution is still the prevailing mood across most industries, and few firms are ready to risk starting out with new suppliers. It makes sense to look for opportunities in your own backyard—the accounts in which you already have an established relationship.