Picking the Right Client to Invest Time In
You may have a hunch that a dormant client or prospect could make a great client in the near future. We recommend that before you invest time in pursuing them that you spend time assessing how attractive they would be to your organisation.
The first step is to establish a list of attractiveness criteria. You can do this by looking at your current best clients and what makes them attractive to you. Think about things like about their size in terms of turnover or staff numbers, their industry, their location, access to decision makers and their cultural fit with your organisation.
Once you have established that the client is "attractive" to you, you are ready for the second step.
The second step is to work out what would make your organisation attractive to this client or prospect. This is especially important if they don't know you, or are already in a business relationship with another provider of similar products and services.
Things that make us attractive to our clients are called "triggers". There are many types of triggers but some of the biggies are:
* A change in business strategy or a major change in their industry
* Changes to their corporate structure including the arrival of new senior executives
* A change in the nature of their current supplier relationship
* A major change in government policy or economic conditions
* A merger or takeover or the opening or closing of a major business unit.
* A major new business opportunity or tender that they need to win
The only way to uncover triggers is to do some quality research. Once you have done your research you will have either established some powerful triggers or not. In the event that you haven't established any trigger, it doesn't change how attractive the client may be, it’s just that it will be hard for you to get an appointment to see them - as there is nothing that makes you attractive to them.
On the other hand if you have an attractive client with one or more trigger then it’s time to start planning a contact strategy.
We have created a decision grid that provides some guidance on what to do with a client that falls into any of the four zones. You can read about what to do next in the blog about using the A.T Decision Grid.
