09.12.18

How to Find and Cultivate Prospects that Fit Your Business

by: Tony Cole, Founder and CEO of Anthony Cole Training Group

Today, customers are bombarded with sales pitches, marketing and advertising from companies all hoping to win their business. They’re overwhelmed, or, in most cases, they simply tune us out. So, we try to reach as many potential customers as we can, but we spin our wheels and end up stuck in the same place, week after week, month after month, or year after year.

The problem? We’re not sure who we’re trying to reach. Many of our potential customers view their time as their greatest, most valuable, asset, and so should we. We can protect that asset by having a clear understanding of who our target customer is.

Identify Who Your Zebra Is

In order to hone that understanding, you have to begin with first identifying your “Zebra,” or your ideal prospect persona. You can do that in three easy steps:

1. Begin by segmenting your business’s book into thirds. For most companies, that top third brings in 90 percent of the company’s revenue. They are generally the best clients.

2. Look for common traits and demographics in that top third. Ask questions like:

   • What do these customers have in common?
   • What industry are they in?
   • Who is our main point of contact?
   • How do we contact them?
   • What is the size of their organization?

   Having the answers to questions like these helps identify other potential customers in the market.

3. Once you know what traits you’re looking for in that top third, commit two-thirds of our time to looking for or attracting customers from this group.

Identify Who Your Zebra Is Not

Of equal importance is to know, and clearly articulate, who isn’t a Zebra for your company. If you know who doesn’t fit your ideal customer persona, it’ll bring clarity to your network and prospecting efforts, and again, make good use of your time. Here’s why it’s important to know who your Zebra is not:

1. Eliminate ambiguity

   Introductions have been proven to be the number-one way that top producers grow their business. But if you aren’t specific about who you serve best, it’s hard to get those introductions. You need to be specific and clear about what type of zebra you serve best.

2. Reduce frustration with your centers of influence (COI)

   You want to capitalize on your COI’s relationships, but if you’re not crystal clear with who you’re looking for, your COI may make an introduction to someone you can’t help. When working with your COI, it’s helpful to articulate the type of business or individual you’re looking for, along with what you’re not looking for and why.

3. Reduce your opportunity cost

   Your opportunity cost is what you’re not working on that might have been more viable for our organization. If we’re calling on Company ABC, we’re not working on Company XYZ. Are we losing out on better business, because we’re not calling on the right prospects?

If you know what you don’t want and the reasons why, it might reduce the quantity of opportunities in your pipeline, but the quality will increase dramatically. 

Cultivating Zebras

Once you’ve determined which customers are and aren’t Zebras, you need to understand the best ways get in front of them and build relationships.

Start by doing some research. Should you call or email them? What is their preferred social media platform — LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter? Knowing how and where to reach your target persona will positively impact your ability to hunt, qualify and discover potential new business. Undoubtedly, your most effective approach is to use the relationships you have with your top third by asking them to introduce you to others they know, who will most likely fall into that ideal customer profile.

It takes work to find these prospects and then contact them, but it’s well worth the effort. Your chances of success are now much higher because you know you’re reaching the right audience, the Zebras who become your best clients.

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