4 Steps to Effectively Impress Customers in New Business Development: A Sales Strategy Formulation Guide

Necessary Preparations Before Prospecting New Leads

Prospective customers can be identified through various methods, including outbound calls, emails, direct mail, social media, and events such as trade shows. For leads with a certain level of potential, we nurture them through the sales funnel, educate them about our products or services, and guide them through the process of converting into a purchase.

While there are differences depending on the industry and sales approach, the following steps are generally followed.

1. Define the Ideal Customer Profile: Define customers who maximize the use of your products or services based on information such as industry, company size, location, department, and the job title of the person in charge.

• To solve problems related to business continuity
• To save resources spent on operations
• To increase sales

By identifying common items among ideal customers who have these objectives, you can develop a detailed image of their business responsibilities, daily work tasks, and even the pain points they experience.

Defining an ideal customer profile leads to creating a common understanding within the sales organization regarding the origin of a prospect's needs. Indicators that facilitate this common understanding include the following items:

• NPS (Net Promoter Score) or CSAT (Customer Satisfaction Score)
• Annual Contract Value or Total Contract Value
• Growth rate by industry
• Retention rate

2. Create an Approach List and Identify Qualified Leads: List companies that meet the criteria of your ideal customer profile. Specifically, lists are formed using the following methods:

• Researching company profiles and history through desk research
• Purchasing lists from data providers
• Participating in industry events to obtain contact information

Once you have a list of prospects, conduct detailed research on items such as the business objectives and investment areas of the companies on the list using the following data:

• Corporate Attributes: Use data such as company organization, group affiliation, and number of employees to confirm if they are close to your ideal customer profile.
• Technographic Data: By clarifying the status of tool adoption, you can visualize the relationship with competing services and the adoption status of services that can integrate with your own, allowing you to consider the direction of your proposal.
• Financial Data: Financial data, such as recent investment areas and business performance, is important information for measuring the likelihood that they will pay for your products or services.

3. Determine How to Contact Prospects: Methods for approaching qualified leads include requesting meetings via email or phone, and advertising using social media or paid media. It is important to start a conversation and build a relationship. Be careful, as sales opportunities can vanish instantly if the prospect feels they are being "sold to" or if the sales representative lacks an understanding of the prospect's challenges. You should select an appropriate approach method after preparing several contexts in which your products or services can solve the business problems faced by the prospect.