How To Take Charge of Your Accounts and Increase Your Quality of Earnings

Quick! Print out a list of all of your accounts. Do it right now.
Did you print it? Probably not. After all, you know your list. You know your clients too, and besides, how could I say or ask anything that would be relevant to your specific list?
The reality is that after all my years in sales and as a sales coach, I don’t need to see your list to know that there is untapped information and potential there. It might be that no one ever showed you how to mine your list. Or, it might be a case of having forgotten how a few simple questions can keep you inspired to reach another level. Either way, there’s a tremendous amount of value in analyzing your list.
As you know, I’m a firm believer in the application of Pareto’s 80/20 principle. That means that if you have a list of 80 clients, 16 of them are in the 20%, providing you with 80% of your revenue. The other 64 clients aren’t.
With your top accounts, what do they have in common with each other? Is it their industry, location, or the way the company is structured? Are they all within a specific aspect of the industry that you have more expertise in? Why do you think they do business with you rather than your competitors?
When it comes to mining your top 16, think about the way their business is built and how they structured themselves. Then brainstorm/research for other businesses, companies, and organizations that mirror their setup. This will provide you with a list of more potential top 20% performers.
Make sure your top accounts really are profitable. There are times when the revenue they provide looks good until you dive into how much time, effort and work it’s costing you to consider them as one of your top 20%.
Don’t forget about your other 64 clients. Take a long look at each one of them to determine their long-term prognosis as being a good match for you and your list. Are there any with the potential of moving up and into your top 20%? If there are, consider how much time it would take to get them there. Are you willing to make the effort? If you aren’t, it doesn’t mean you should get rid of them as a client. It just means you can block the time you spend on their account off your calendar well into the future.
With the lower performing clients, maybe it’s time to consider another alternative for them—like inside sales. Could you hand them over to a new sales rep in your company? Obviously you can keep them, but you will be blocking off your valuable time to work on their accounts well into the future too. On the other hand, if you come up with a way to professionally and ethically let them go, you’ll have more time to pursue new accounts.
There’s always a balance to be struck in sales. We want to believe that our client list is structured with the necessary combination of clients who will help us reach both our sales and monetary goals. But business is always on the move—always changing.

When was the last time you went through your client list to make sure everyone on it is still performing in a way that supports their goals as well as yours?


Alan Luoma: I am a Sales Coach with extensive experience in industrial sales, sales management, new

product development, sales and product training. I work part time with a great national sustainable packaging company and their exceptional distributors to increase sales. My success has been and is in utilizing the Pareto 80/20 principal in business and life. I have become an expert in seeking out and eliminating behaviors that prevent business people from being successful. I am a member of The National Speakers Association and New England Speakers Association. You can view my profile on LinkedIn, or contact me at Luoma@snet.net 

From Conference Attendee to Buying Customer

I wanted to reach more prospects so in addition to purchasing a vendor table at a conference, I submitted a proposal to do a workshop. When the conference committee accepted my proposal and I asked the young lady what the compensation for speaking was, she said it was nothing. But I did it anyway and it resulted in what I really wanted... sales!

At the conclusion of my workshop, I raffled off a few of my products to collect their business cards. In the days before I had products, I use to raffle off a gift basket of fun items. Then I returned to my office and did two things: I invited each person to connect on LinkedIn (if they had a profile) and asked them for a recommendation, and I sent them all an email, simply to thank them for attending my workshop. I also included a link to a PDF version of my presentation on my website that they could download and review.

Then after about a week or two, I called each one of them to

thank them again and to set up a phone meeting to discuss their business challenges related to my services. It allowed me to strengthen my relationship with them. Some even referred me to the person in their organization who may be more interested in my services.

Over the next few months I continued to contact all of my attendees until they either asked for a proposal, referred me, or told me they were not interested in my services. From the nearly 50 participants that attended my session that day, a solid 8 were still prospects with either proposals now in their hands or still considering hiring me when the conditions are right.

I've learned that it may take 5 or 6 contacts with a prospect before they turn into a paying customer. And in addition, people change, prospects get new positions, prospects move to other companies, and even a prospects conditions or needs change over time. I'm learning to keep myself in front of them until they are ready to buy.

Bill Corbett is the founder and organizer of the HARTFORD SPRINGFIELD SPEAKER'S NETWORK and an award winning professional speaker who has been speaking since 1995. He has been on stages across the U.S. for everything from brief lectures to keynote speeches to multi-day training events, and will be the featured speaker at a conference in The Netherlands this Fall. He is a regular contributor to network television affiliates and provides one-on-one speaker coaching for business professionals. Learn more about him and his top-selling Amazon books.

Catapult Your Sales Funnel With This One Business Growth Idea

If you’re a coach like me, you may be interested in something I found that is the perfect way to create a steady stream of customers. It’s a secret I stumbled on that opened the door to lots of business that I had never expected. And once I implemented it, I discovered that others were doing it as well. Are you ready for this secret? Read on.

As a youth development consultant and parent coach, I wanted to figure out how to create a line of customers that might be likely to bring me revenue from one of my four revenue streams: purchasing my products, enrolling in my training programs, hiring me for private coaching, or hiring me to speak in front of somebody else’s audience.

I realized in this day and age of FREE stuff where ever you turn, I had to create an entry
level of FREE to attract attention and draw potential customers in to my sales funnel. I needed a draw in which I could offer some sort of FREE information, a FREE product, FREE training, or FREE coaching. Then, it struck me exactly how to do that.

I needed to find a location available to me in the evenings or on weekends that was FREE or low-cost. It had to be some sort of intimate room where I could host a one-hour reoccurring coaching session, FREE of charge to potential clients. I found that location and then began to advertise my FREE drop-in parent coaching sessions where ever I could.

One of my greatest successes was sharing the information on these sessions with people I call “gatekeepers”; folks who have access to my potential clients; parents. These gatekeepers were therapists, parent network organizers, teachers, principals, pediatricians, dentists, and others. Before I knew it, so many people had heard about my drop-in coaching sessions and the stream of potential customers began to flow.

Some came just to get the FREE advice. Others came and bought my materials I had set up on a sales table. Many came and walked out with a flier advertising my latest parenting class and a decent percentage signed up. And another smaller group hired me to conduct private coaching, paying my full fee.

The last group of folks were the best; they were the gatekeepers themselves, who came to see my coaching sessions for themselves, many eventually hiring me to speak at conferences and training events to their clients. This sales funnel had started and actually took on a life of its own. Now, don’t get me wrong; there were some nights that no one showed up, especially in the beginning. But I showed up for each session no matter what and always brought along my laptop to get some work done, just in case no one showed up.

This idea may not work for everyone, but if you’re a coach; business, writing, speaking, life, parent, or any sort of other coach, could this work for you? Could you offer some sort of regular weekly, monthly, or quarterly drop-in coaching that could start YOUR sales funnel? You’ll be surprised how far some folks will travel to get FREE advice and help they urgently need.

Need some help with this idea? Contact me for some coaching to get this one off the ground quickly.

Bill Corbett is a professional speaker who delivers keynote speeches and training seminars across the United States. When he's not helping youth workers and other caregivers with challenging behavior issues, he works with business clients to show them how to leverage 2.0 strategies in order to grow top line revenues. Bill has built several successful businesses from the ground up using top-notch entrepreneurial techniques to implement inbound marketing campaigns. He has thousands of followers and subscribers tuning into his various social media channels, and he knows how to work them all to maintain platform growth and connect with both new and established customers, clients, and collaborators. He is a much sought after business consultant, trainer and mentor, is a regular contributor to major network television affiliates, and produces two television shows as part of his own unique marketing plan. Link up with him on LINKEDIN by CLICKING HERE.