Kristapor Giragosian, Chief Americas Officer at Cognism, on how to focus your sales strategy. Rise member Cognism is a B2B sales acceleration software company.
If you’re getting traction, double down
Modern working practices has proven useful for some startups - their value proposition has become more applicable. These firms should really double down on that messaging and put everything behind it. There’s a widespread phrase that most startups die from indigestion not starvation.
Don't try to do too many things at once. Instead, really try to focus on that part of the market that's getting you the most traction.
Narrow your focus
Figure out what companies are in your sweet spot. Refine that total addressable market down into a core zone to go after. Define the target company persona, whether it be by headcount, revenue, what they specialise in, whether they have a gap in their business profit – whatever unifies that core grouping of businesses.
This way you your salespeople not only have a unified message when they're lining them up one by one and going after customers, but you can also implement a very similar solution for each one when it comes to retention. Then you upgrade your solution and sell more of it.
Identify the buying committee and the buying journey
It’s not going to be just the end user or just the contract signer. Identify how many people are going to be involved in the buying process and try to map out a model.
Once you have your buying committee, make sure that you understand what the standard buying journey looks like - from getting your foot in the door to getting either trial or proof of concept.
Really map that out so you know exactly what the next step in your potential sale is because you don't want to be winging it.
Shaul Weisband, Jifiti co-founder and CMO, talks about his experience in tailoring product value to client needs. Rise member Jifiti provides no-integration consumer lending solutions to retailers and brands, both in-store and online.
Create dynamic value
What we internally call dynamic value has helped us a lot. Realise that even if you have a single solution or a single platform, clients will have different gaps. Even a single platform can bring distinctive value to different potential clients. We're very much encouraging our team to focus on a specific value that we bring to each client.
So when we're reaching out, we do our best to either have a discovery call beforehand or learn everything we can from public data to try to understand the exact value that our product will create. It could be allowing a client to scale very quickly or easing technology transition. It's important to understand that one single solution doesn't mean one single value.
Revisit old conversations
Dig back into your history. So much has changed in the last two years that it’s worth reconnecting with potential clients that have said no in the past and seeing what it turns up. We've seen a big shift towards reconnecting, finding out how they're doing both personally and in terms of business, to know where they stand.
We've seen a lot of business from retailers or potential clients that have said no previously but are now more open to looking at new things. It's helped us a lot in expanding our pipeline.
Embrace informality
There's a lot of informality now in meetings and calls, all the way up to the CEO. Senior people are sitting in their living room, their kids are running around and there’s noise in the background. So we've worked with our team to embrace that informality and it has been successful for us.
It lowers people’s guards and allows you to have a more honest and easy discussion with potential clients compared to meeting in their office or a boardroom.
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