What techniques should you use to create a targeted sales approach?

Persona building is key to a successful sales cycle. Understanding the responsibilities of this persona and adding that to what the company is trying to do in the market (either through funding, hiring, layoffs, etc) can give you a pretty good picture about what YOUR persona specifically is trying to do.

It is key to identify your customer profile or what we would know as persona in sales. Sales professionals will struggle to build pipeline if they can not identify who would benefit from what they are selling. This will take industry understanding to help determine the types of industries and personas you will go after. What problem does your product or solution solve? What industry do you find your product/solution used in the most? Who are the individuals who will use your product/solution? Who is the final decision maker in making the purchase for your product/solution? Often we think it is a c-suite persona but you may come to find out it is someone else within the organization.

Research is key to effective prospecting. The days of spray and pray are over. We should be thinking relevance over volume. It used to be volume would work by dumping a bunch of prospects into a sequence but that no longer will work. We have to be relevant and communicate relevant messaging to those we are prospecting. This can be best done by solutions that help you discover your ideal persona and contact information. You can use that information to get details on their career, any recent promotions, etc. What is important to them? How can you celebrate a recent promotion? Have they been on a podcast that you can listen to and reference in your outreach? Think relevance over volume when it comes to prospecting efforts.

Omni channel reachouts help us stay top of the mind for prospects. One must be careful though, not to be too pushy and nagging. Using voice notes or video selling can help to stand out from the crowd. Selling/being where your prospects are is also important. If you cater to Marketing or Sales personas for example, they tend to be very active on LinkedIn. For roles like product management, you might have to find certain communities specifically created to cater to such roles.

When building your pitch, you need to make sure it resonates with your audience on a personal level. Highlight shared experiences, values, goals, whatever you can to make your narrative more relevant for your prospect, which can make a big difference for both engagement and memorability. I am a big fan of using storytelling whenever I can to create emotion by incorporating stories and real-life examples. One way especially is to use social proofing to design narratives that showcase how your product or service has benefited others. Bonus points if they are in the same industry as your prospect or better yet if they are connected personally in some way.

Your perfect first touch isn't all about your company and how great it is. By doing this, we're 'pitch-slapping' them, and that's unlikely to go down very well. Instead, building a conversation and understanding their challenges and goals, helps you portray yourself as an assistant buyer and a potential solution.

Sales pitch is really done on the front end. If you have no idea as to how your solution/product will add value and solve problems for your prospect, my guess is the sales pitch is going to fall flat. It is key to understand who you are pitching to and the problem your solution will solve for them. It makes the pitch easier to sell rather than discussing all the features and how your company is better than the other. You focus in on the problem and share how you have been able to solve the problem to in turn allow your prospect to see the ROI. Sales pitch starts before the actual sales pitch. Come in with value.

I’ve had the best success by learning in a deep way their industry and business. I invest the time needed to learn their competitors better than they do, meet with folks across the entire org at the line of business/ department level. Learn ways to help outside of my immediate offerings. The more you can become a trusted authority, the easier targeted prospecting and account directing becomes.