[email protected]

Sales training and sales consulting to increase sales.

Call For A Sales Consultation

972-380-0200
  • About
    • What We Do to Increase Sales
    • Sales Philosophy on Hiring Salespeople
    • Clients
    • Customer Comments
    • In the Media
    • Contact Us
  • Speaking and Training
    • Sales Coaching for Performance Improvement
    • Professional Speaking
    • Sales Training
    • Sales Consultant for Business Development & Increase Sales
  • Sales Products
    • Books
    • Audio CDs
    • Webinars
    • E-Books
    • Manuals
    • Booklets
    • Merchandise
  • Free Resources
    • Videos
    • The Selling Newsletter
    • What is your Selling Issue?
    • Recommended Reading
    • Free Reprint Articles
    • White Papers
    • Sales Pro
  • Upcoming Programs
  • Membership
You are here: Home / Blog / Segment Your Prospects and Customers. Are Your Largest Prospects and Customers the Most Important?

Segment Your Prospects and Customers. Are Your Largest Prospects and Customers the Most Important?

February 14, 2023 By maurasf

Segment your prospects and customers by priority

Do you think only your largest prospects and customers are the most important?  I don’t think that’s a very effective way to segment your prospects and customers.  You can customize how you work with prospects and customers when you first realize they are different. Next you have to determine what makes them different. Then it’s up to you to do something with that information.

Prioritize your prospects by buying category.  

I like to segment my prospects by buying category.  The categories are how soon they’ll buy, how profitable their purchases are and yes of course, how much they’ll buy. What you might notice is that I place a premium on how soon they will buy. Those soon to be buyers will get more of my time. 

I once learned from a very successful businessman a philosophy that made him millions of dollars. He said, “You can spend a lot of time negotiating a deal. It’s better to make the deal and start making money.”  Your sales strategy should be to recognize likely buyers and do what you can to make it easier for your prospect to buy from you now. Customers with urgent needs, especially ones that are causing them problems, make a prospect a likely buyer. 

Once I know the prospect is likely to buy soon, I make sure it’s a profitable sale. Yes, revenue is important, but if you’re not making much money on the revenue, you’re not making money for your company. You won’t make much money either especially if you’re on commission. 

Segment your customers by future potential.  

Yes, your biggest accounts should get your most valuable resource: your time. Just being a big account isn’t the only way to view your business.  After all, the one certain thing in sales is that things will change.  Here’s an example.

I worked with another very successful sales professional. His largest account was the company’s largest account in the entire Midwest and Southwest.  Then one day he lost the account through nothing he did. 

What happened? The customer was sold to an even larger corporation.  Overnight, this very successful salesperson went from number 1 in the region to last in line.  He had virtually no business to manage. He was lucky that the company found him another acceptable position.  

Just considering your largest accounts means you are missing the accounts that could become larger. Growth potential is the type of priority to include in your account segmentation. I started working with a new account that bought a moderate amount from me the first year. They were probably at the top of the lowest group of my account’s in size.  Here’s why they didn’t stay there the next year. 

The manager of this customer had a vision for how his business would grow.  Yes, there are some customers who will tell you that they will grow, but somehow they never do. This customer was different. We made our growth plans together and he kept exceeding his growth plans. You need to trust your customers when they say what they’ll do and then they do it.

I never treated this once small customer as a small customer. I saw the promises he made and kept and just knew he would one day be one of my largest accounts. He did in fact become my largest account after just 4 years. 

Segment your prospects and customers by their future potential. Work hard with the ones who want to grow with you. I think Stephen Covey was right when he said, “Strength lies in differences, not in similarities.” It sure does in sales.

Tweet
PinIt

Filed Under: Blog, Sales Process

THE SELLING E-LETTER® SIGN UP

Social media

  • LinkedIn
  • Twitter

Selling Tips

*What was your last “mistake?” Did you make it before? There’s nothing wrong with making mistakes in sales provided you are making different mistakes. (You are learning from them!)

About the principal

Would you take auto mechanics classes when you buy a car? Maura did because she wanted to be able to work on her car. She takes that same approach to selling. She can show you how to get below the surface of selling to learn why and how different strategies work. She will show you which skills to implement that will shorten your sales cycle and increase your sales. She was Mobil Oil's first female Lubrication Engineer in the United States and one of Chevron's top 5 salespeople in the country. She knows what works for sales.

"I would recommend your work to other sales organizations who want to get better results from improved selling strategies."
Jamey Rootes
President
Houston Texans

Sales Expert at Allbusiness.com

Selling is the easiest job in the world. Just ask anyone who is not in sales. Read Maura’s ideas on “more brain…less mouth” selling to make your selling easier and more successful.

Maura’s Allbusiness blog posts

Recent Posts

  • Sales Is Not Fair
  • Less Stress Selling:  What You Can Do to Reduce Sales Stress
  • Segment Your Prospects and Customers. Are Your Largest Prospects and Customers the Most Important?
  • Women In Sales: Beware Mansplaining and other gender stereotypes!
  • Sell In A Recession

Search

Copyright © 2023 · [email protected]