Our economy operates within a predictable and consistent cycle that looks like this:

•            Expansion

•            Prosperity

•            Contraction

•            Recession

Expansion happens when creative business leaders and entrepreneurs create and develop business opportunities. Sometimes they are wildly creative and unique; others are simply timely. Regardless, this creative activity generates enthusiasm and momentum that carries the economy into the next natural cycle - prosperity.

With prosperity, everyone begins to get in on the action. New businesses are created to support the new-found success while others adapt to the new business model. As a result, sales professionals find themselves overwhelmed with business opportunities and prospects. It's a great time, but it's also very competitive because of the huge influx of new players.

This leads eventually to contraction. The market becomes a little too saturated causing many companies to reevaluate their business process and start pulling back on their spending. Sales professionals begin to notice that it is now harder to get decisions on their proposals and business leaders begin to negotiate more seriously as they work to get the best deal. The bubble is about to burst and everyone knows this deep down in their gut.

When the bubble bursts, we find ourselves in the midst of a recession. While recessionary periods since the Great Depression have typically been shorter each time, this doesn't make them any less painful to endure. The key for business owners and sales professionals alike is to determine how to approach this period. Eventually a recession ends; how will you and your company position yourself to be seen as the leader when expansion begins to take place again?

Rather than wait the recession out, sales professionals and business leaders alike need to identify ways to change the question and play a pivotal role in their community. When they change the question and change how they approach the market place, it aids in finding those opportunities that are happening now while also positioning them for solid success in the age of expansion.

Change the Question

The standard approach is to beat your head against the wall asking the same old question, "Who is out there that will buy my stuff?" Instead consider changing the question to, "What problems are out there that I can solve?" and "What can I do to help businesses in my market place?"

Fundamentally this makes a tremendous change. You stop asking who can help you and instead begin searching for people and companies that you can help. When you learn to invest and sow the seed, the harvest will begin to take shape.

Focus on the Right Prospects

Simply increasing your call activity will do nothing for your future success. While this sounds desperately wrong, the truth is you must understand that knocking on more doors will not help unless they are the right doors. Yes, sales remains a numbers game, but those who understand the numbers games recognize that you have to play the game right in order to win. So simply rustling up activity for activity's sake is the wrong approach.

Change your focus by identifying the type of customers you really desire. Ask yourself questions like:

•            What markets or industries do I have the most success in?

•            What type(s) of businesses would gain the most from my products or services?

•            What is the optimum minimum size of these businesses? I know that a company generating $1 million in revenue could potentially fit, but in reality, my products or services are best for those doing $5 million or more in annual revenue. And the number of employees may play into the equation as well. Perhaps you need companies with 100 or more employees. If so, why concentrate on that account with only 25?

•            Who should I be focused on speaking with? In the past you may have called primarily on people in the purchasing department but what about elevating your call to the C-level? Would the CEO be more receptive, especially now, to how you can help him or her meet their strategic business initiatives? Would the Chief Marketing Officer be a better fit for ideas that will help them reach their target audience and, thus, increase response rates and hit sales targets?

Find the Prospects that Fit Your Ideal Customer Definition

Now that you've identified your target prospect profile, you need to identify who those businesses are. But how do you do that? My recommendation is simple: Sales Genie.

1.            Go to http://www.SalesGenie.com

2.            Create an account, if you don't already have one.

3.            Using the demographic tools that are available, begin to input the information from the target prospect profile you created.

a.            Choose the geographic region you can call on. If unlimited, choose a 100 mile radius from your own home base.

b.            Choose the revenue ranges you desire.

c.            Choose the minimum number of employees the prospects should have.

d.            Choose the industry or industries that best fit your profile.

e.            Choose the target title for each. You can choose several, so pick the ones you feel you can best help but don't fear the C-level; they tend to be much easier to work with that you'd think.

f.            Depending on your industry, you will find it helpful to choose what "spending" information you want to know about. Sales Genie provides great information that highlights the approximate budget that is spent for such things as printing, building rent, telecommunications, technology, equipment and so forth. This is a great piece of information that is fairly accurate.

g.            Select other variables to fit your preferences.

4.            Choose the quantity of records you want and purchase.

Now you have your list of prospective customers. It's time to get to work.

The greatest thing you can do for your future success is to schedule a minimum of one hour a day in your calendar for yourself. This hour will be for doing nothing - I mean absolutely nothing - except for making telephone calls to schedule appointments. By setting this appointment with yourself, you will find it easier to eliminate things that could interfere with your most important activity: Prospecting.

Set goals for your prospecting efforts.

•            How many calls do you intend to make?

•            How many completed calls do you want to achieve? Completed calls are calls where you actually talk live to the person you intended to speak with.

•            How many appointments do you want to set?

Let me make the following suggestions:

•            Set a goal of at least 15 telephone prospecting calls each and every day.

•            Shoot for a 5:1 ratio. As you continuously do this and work on improving your script for the call, you should be able to get at least one out of every five targets on the phone.

•            Once you have them on the phone, you want at least a 50% success rate in setting the appointment. Again, constant improvement and tenacity will help you achieve this or even better.

•            You need to set a minimum of (5) new appointments each and every week. Note: I'm talking about (5) NEW appointments; your follow up appointments are in addition to these new appointments. New appointments help you build and rebuild your sales funnel.

Another Tool to Help Get Appointment Success

Never substitute email for the telephone, but feel free to supplement your activity with email. There are those who will respond more readily to email rather than a phone call, so a proper mix of both will give you greater success.

To accomplish an email routine, let me show you how I accomplish this:

You start with an email introduction for those you've not worked with before. It should look something like this:

My name is [your name] with [Company Name] in [your city], and I have been assigned [target account name] as an account. I'd like to schedule some time to talk with you about your organization, its challenges and initiatives for '09. I hope to get a better understanding of how [target account name] may benefit by partnering with [your company name] to [list a key benefit of working with your company]. Some of our local customers include [list two or three current customers].

I'm not asking you to make a change right now, [Customer's first name or Mr./Ms. Last Name], but I have been doing this long enough to know that the one constant in this business...is change. I just want the opportunity to start a dialogue with you, and let you know what is available, so that if needs arise in the future, maybe I will have the opportunity to earn your business. At the very least, I can provide, at no cost to you, an assessment of your current situation. You can use it as leverage against your current provider or you may be willing to take a look at [your company's name]. Either way, it's a no lose situation for you and your organization.

May I schedule some time with you in the next couple of weeks? Perhaps some time next week?

In your service,

Signature Block

The next day you need to send an Outlook meeting request asking for the appointment. I advise asking for a 30-minute meeting so they don't see this as a huge time investment. This works best used exactly as follows:

Put the following in the subject line: Proposed First Meeting with [customer's name]

...and in the body of the meeting request, type the following:

[customer's name],

As a follow up to my previous email, I'd like to meet with you this coming Tuesday, the 29th, at 2pm. Please confirm this time with me.

Thank you!

[Put your signature block on every meeting request]

If you have not received a "Meeting Accepted," "Meeting Declined," or even a "Proposed New Meeting Date" email from your contact, do one of the following:

1.            Open the meeting invite up and click "Send Update". Although nothing has changed, it works to jog their memory or get their attention to respond.

2.            If they still don't respond, delete the meeting request and try again at a later date or try another method.

I have found this process to work especially well with C-level officers and IT Directors. These individuals usually answer their own email and prefer email over any other form of communication. My experience is showing a 50% to 60% success rate in securing the appointment.

Accelerate Your Activity...in the Right Way...and Achieve Success!

If you put the work into identifying the right type of customers you want to do business with along with a high level of activity, you can dramatically improve your business success. The key question is this: Are you prepared to do what it will take?

If you will work diligently to set no less than (5) face-to-face appointments with new target customers each and every week, you will see a tremendous up-tick in your sales results. But you must put in the effort...every day...every week.