Sales is tough, however highly targeted account based sales is tougher. It is not scientifically hard in the sense that you need a special degree to succeed, but it is tough in that the process can be long, there are more “no’s” than “yes’s” and it can be a frustrating grind sometimes.
Over the years we have worked with many different types of companies. Some selling products, others selling services. What is the same is that for some the targets are sector specific but there are a lot of them. As an example, for a company we are working with in the evidence synthesis space, one of the sectors we are targeting is health economics and research companies in North America and Europe and the list is in the thousands and thousands. That is great in the sense there are lots of targets and how you deal with that is lots of emails and triaging the results (opens, clicks) to targeted calls. It is really a pure numbers game and follows a very specific, short-term sales cadence.
Conversely, there are companies we work with that have a very specific product and the sector and size of prospect we have targeted is much, much narrower. In one example, we are targeting chain retailers of a certain size in Canada and the US where the target list in the few hundred. We know the exact persona we are going after so we can focus our effort here.
This blog is going to look at this type of sale, a highly targeted account based sale where traditional sales email techniques of blasting out three or four emails and then doing two or three targeted calls and then stopping is not the game plan. In these situations of what I call “highly targeted sales opportunities” we must be willing to play the long-game here. We all know that if you have done sales, there are a number of things involved in getting a meeting. Timing matters. Messaging matters. Business pain matters and so forth. So in situations of highly targeted sales opportunities we must be willing to not give up after the standard 3 or 6 attempts over the course of a month or two. We must continue to find new ways over months and months to try to create an awareness of the product you are selling that corresponds with the timing of a need.
In some cases too, even if you believe you have the right persona, it does not hurt to go wider and find other folks to introduce the product to that might have an interest. An example here is that for one client, we are targeting the senior design contacts in a highly targeted list of prospects. When we are not seeing progress, we will add in senior construction, procurement or operational contacts to the mix.
The other key here is to not continuously repeat the same messages but change up the messaging. Personalize it if you can. Send along some case studies, pictures or examples of work completed that is relevant to them. Stories sell and helping people envision how your product can be used might help move things along.
So to summarize the tips here for executing a strategy going after a select list of highly targeted accounts you should:
- Play the long-game
- Go wider and deeper
- Change up and personalize the messaging
Good luck with your sales efforts and meetings. Happy Hunting!
Please check out more of our blogs if you are looking for additional information on sales strategy or sales techniques or great insight into startup sales and marketing, feel free to sign up for our newsletter or follow us on LinkedIn.
