C-Level Selling - A 3 Step Process

Building your market size and your market share from the ground up is a simple task that every sales person should do in his/her region. What you want to have is a good visual, that you can easily update, that will shout out to do’s with the best chances for closing, that fit into your schedule.

Based on the previous articles of this series, hopefully you’ve been gathering some intelligence from meetings with existing customers, old and/or lost customers, new prospects and/or competitors customers. But even if you haven’t begun your meetings, you’ll still be able to get this planning document started. And having something is better than keeping it stuffed somewhere in your head. A visual map – no matter how crude - of your journey to your sales destination makes selling much easier, more fun and very profitable.

Here are the 3 steps of how to start building your Opportunity Matrix

1. Use an Excel spread sheet. Start with existing clients and list them down the left column. If an existing client has other buying divisions or locations give each it’s own box or row – even if they don’t currently buy from you.

Across the top row, list all the products and services you sell. Include new or potential products as well. Use categories of products/services if there are similar items i.e. different sizes or colors.

Enter the percentage of their total purchases of this item this customer buys from you if they also buy the same from competitors and/or do some themselves. If you don’t know, guess a percentage and place a "?" next to it. This will alert you to find out more. Keep reminding yourself that it is OK not to know, but it is not OK to pretend to know.

Leave blank all the services and products this existing client doesn’t buy from you, but could. Later we will fill these with other information. Put "N/A" through those boxes that don’t apply at all. If you prefer use dollars or quantities, but keep it a simple visual. Now repeat the above for all your existing customers.

Clients: / Service (1), Service (2), Product (1), Product (2), ...

Review this chart with your customer team. That is all the people in your company who touch this customer - Customer Service, Engineering, Tech Support, Operations, and Senior Managers. It can be done as a group or one-on-one. Many times these people know more or have easier access to the client’s people than the sales person. They can be a wealth of information about what’s going on inside your clients’ organizations. Later they can be used as a great source for introductions to C-Levels and other influential people. You’ll want to do this team review at least twice a year for each client. However, you’ll update this report every 4-6 weeks and review it with someone, preferably your boss and/or subordinates.

2. Now list all the old or lost customers down the left side. Indicate who they buy it from now and how much in the boxes. Leave the other boxes blank, but indicate (N/A) what doesn’t apply.

3. Then list competitors’ customers that you’ve never done business with. List the accounts down the left as before, and in the boxes write who the competitor/s is/are and/or "?s" if unsure. Note products or services they don’t buy from anyone, but could, or do it themselves. Include prospects that you know buy, but you don’t have any information about. Finally list those that do it all themselves. Keep in mind also that some of your competitors can be customers as joint venture partners for services they don’t do or have too much volume to handle.

This is your Opportunity Matrix. Every box without an N/A is a potential sale or work being done internally (which can be a potential sale eventually) for all the products and services you have available. At this point we are not using a time horizon. This will come later. For now you just want to know could they or will they need what you sell someday.

In the next part of this series, I will show you how to phase all of these opportunities no matter how busy you are. I will discuss setting up 4 marketing categories and 4 selling categories. Then we will assign action items of varying energies to handle each possibility of your market potential based around the time you have available for selling.

And now I invite you to

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