We’re back again to continue our blog series on how to increase new account sales. This week, we share with you the second best practice which is that top hunters maximize their prospecting time.

Top hunters value their prospecting time and make the best use of it by focusing on best fit accounts. As we spoke with top performing account acquisition sales people, the topic of effective time prioritization came up repeatedly. One particularly eloquent sales person put it this way, “All I have is my time. I can’t make up for time spent with a low quality prospect. Spending time with the right prospects can make or break me.”

That is just one sales representative! Think about the impact across the organization of sales representatives spending time with accounts that are not a good fit. An hour of wasted selling time per day spread across hundreds or thousands of sales people becomes a staggering amount of lost opportunity.

It is clear that prioritizing prospecting time is critical for success, but how do top hunters go about it? We explored this, and our discussion revealed that top hunters determine ‘best fit’ accounts using two specific criteria:

1. The revenue potential of the account
2. The likelihood of winning a deal in the account

You can leverage this insight across your organization by:

1. Implementing a standardized account prioritization approach for your acquisition sales people
2. Regularly inspecting and coaching account acquisition sales people to ensure:
   • They are prioritizing the correct accounts
   • They are aligning their activities with the highest potential accounts

Below we have included an example account prioritization tool which supports in segmenting accounts and taking the right approach for each group.

This tool divides accounts into 4 segments:

1. Focus on accounts with a high revenue potential and a high likelihood of winning
2. Finish accounts with a low revenue potential and high likelihood of winning as quickly and efficiently as possible
3. Manage their time investment for accounts with a high revenue potential and low likelihood of winning
4. Touch accounts with low revenue potential and low likelihood of winning

How do we determine which accounts go where? As we spoke with top hunters, we recognized that there were some more specific criteria that they used to segment accounts. Some example criteria is documented in the chart below.

Leveraging tools like this can better enable your account acquisition sales people to more effectively invest their prospecting time across target accounts, ensuring that you maximize your chances of acquiring new business. Happy Hunting!

The 7 Best Practices of Top Hunters

There are some specific things that top sales hunters do that enable them to consistently win new business accounts. As we reviewed the insights that the top sales hunters shared with us, 7 best practices emerged as the keys to their success:

1.    Focus on acquiring new accounts

2.   Maximize prospecting time

3.   Develop insights about target accounts and share these with target contacts

4.   Build compelling value propositions and emphasize them when prospecting

5.   Understand the buying team and buying process for their target accounts

5B. Align selling efforts with the buying process for target accounts

6.   Develop “multi touch” prospecting strategies

7.   Be tenacious and relentless in executing their prospecting strategies