How To Find Your Next Customer

By Alen Majer

Every sales person, no matter how successful, has this basic problem of whom to sell to each month. Anyone whoever worked in sales knows how one month you can be the best sales person in the company and then the calendar turns to a new month and you are starting from zero again.

Your previous success is forgotten and your manager is coming to your desk with the same old questions – what will you do for me this month? What is in your pipeline? How many deals are you going to close this month?

This is what I call the curse of a sales job – only in sales you can be a number one this month or quarter, and then again next month equal to every other sales person in the company. Last month is behind you now and you are back at zero.

The experienced sales person will know this curse and is working every month for the next sales to happen. The easy way out would be falling into the trap of being a “God of sales” one month, then buried under the ground the very next one. The professional salesperson is actively working on his pipeline to have deals in progress for the next months to come.

The less successful sales person will work hard to meet his quota on more of a month by month basis, working at just being the best of the average and maybe reach his quota 6-9 months each year: then hoping at least one time in that year the stars and planets will align and everyone on his list will buy from him this one particular month.

You can obtain the list of prospects in your territory or in your desired vertical market and blindly cold call them one by one, and this could be a good idea for your manager who was doing the same when he was sales representative 20 or 30 years ago, in the time before computers, internet, news portals, Blogs, RSS feeds etc.

Today, different media are covering every single press release, new product introduction, and business conference in the world and you can find out easily the information about events and people who were being covered. The power of Internet is strong and becoming considerably stronger. There are many offline resources to help you with your research like business directories, and ads in local Sunday newspapers; however your preference should be in online resources as a faster and easier way of getting the information.

What you need to do is quit looking in your rear-view mirror or outside your window: you need to see what is in front of you - what is the future and what changes are going to take place. By learning where to find and how to use trigger events, calls you will make in the future will never ever be cold!  With trigger events it will be easier for you to find companies that have immediate wants and needs. You are looking for events that can trigger the sales opportunity for you.

With this newly acquired knowledge you will be able to qualify prospects faster and find your next customer much easier than before. And not just that - you will be able to put customers in the market who didn't feel that way before you contacted them. Companies with a trigger event buy 400% more often than ones without these kinds of events!

Trigger events can be a very powerful weapon for sales person who wants to be able to qualify prospects faster and understand his customers' situation, and identify needs with customers together. When you start learning where to find trigger events and how to use them, you will be able to get faster to the proposal because you will know that your prospects are already qualified for your product or service, and you will have information about their needs gathered before the meeting or presentation.

The whole object of your approach is to fully arouse your prospect's interest - to bring him to the point where he wants to see your product and hear your proposition. During the information gathering phase your task is to navigate the conversation with your questions to confirm what you already know from trigger events; you will help your prospect to recognize and/or to acknowledge their needs and wants.

Drive the conversation to the client's real needs and you will certainly get the chance to present your solution to customers who will be interested to hear how you can help them. One of the most important things for buyers is to have a feeling that a sales person understands their position and needs. With trigger events you will be there, easier and faster than anyone!

Alen Majer consults businesses on a variety of topics ranging from improving sales processes and developing better customer relationships to improving internal sales forces skills. Alen holds seminars about different sales topics, from “How to Find the Customers” to "How to Be a Professional Sales Person," in order to assist the development of salesperson skills suitable for the 21st century. He is the author of Trigger Events - How to Find Your Next Customer. To learn, visit www.AlenMajer.com and subscribe to his newsletter.

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