Have you recently started a new sales role or is your pipeline of opportunities not large enough? Finding new opportunities (and growing your pipeline) may be easier than you think. How do you identify them quickly and get an action plan in place?
Contact someone who can act as a mentor
Mentors can be someone inside or outside your company. Either way it is important, for this exercise, that the person has a good understanding of your business. Advisors, Sales Managers, Services Delivery Managers, experienced sales representatives and people in other key roles can be valuable as mentors.
How to identify opportunities quickly
Simply create a grid (or you can start by using a whiteboard to make collaboration easy) with customers listed on one axis and product and/or services your company offers listed on the other. I suggest you list no more than 3 – 5 customers at a time. Then do the following:
- Put an “x” in the boxes where you are currently providing any products or services
- Agree upon additional solutions the customer would likely be interested in
- Identify customers your company is providing these additional solutions for
- Outline an action plan for new opportunities including owners and due dates
- Agree upon a follow up date to get back together to discuss progress
A simplified example…
Make the process fun
If you cannot identify a mentor, find someone to collaborate with. The process can certainly be productive with more than one person contributing ideas. Encourage each other to be creative and maybe include a fun challenge. The collaboration will have you feeling more excited about the possibilities in a short period of time.
Feel free to contact me directly for ideas and/or help on this or other topics!
Sign up as a subscriber for exclusive weekly emails with additional ideas on my home page (just scroll down)!