B2B Sales:
Narrow Your Focus, Multiply Your Business

by Dave Kahle

           In my earlier life, I had seven sales positions during the time from age 18 to 34.  The last was selling for a hospital supplies distributor.  I was given a territory that had about $10,000 in existing business, and 77 accounts.

           Every year for the next five years, my manager took accounts away from me.  And every year my sales grew exponentially.  In a world where a one-million-dollar territory was the gold standard, I had a million dollar a year increase.  When I moved on after five years, I was down to 17 accounts and was generating $5 Million in annual sales. Those 17 accounts were large, strategically important, high potential accounts.

           That was my first encounter with the truth that I later formulated into this rule:  In B2B sales, you always do better narrowing your focus than expanding it.

           Early on in my consulting career I had a client with a thriving business who manufactured automobile parts. His secret was narrowing the niche for his marketing efforts.  He decided to specialize in body parts for one brand of car – say Mercedes Benz.  To narrow it further, he narrowed it down to two models.  And, to narrow it further, he selected a ten-year time frame.  So, he sold body parts for two Mercedes Benz models manufactured from 1950 to 1960.  He owned that market.  When he produced a part, he would mark it up in multiples, not percentages.

           That, and multiple other engagements over the past 30 years have brought me to the belief that, for a B2B salesperson, you are always better off focusing on fewer, higher-potential accounts.  And, for a business owner, you are always better off narrowing your market rather than expanding it.

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           Here’s why. B2B Salesperson

           For a B2B salesperson, one of the paths to exceptional performance is to be guided by the rule that you should invest your sales time where it will get the highest return on time invested. Think of a unit of sales time (the time you spend in a two -way conversation with a prospect or customer).  You could spend that one hour on a customer that could generate $1,000 in revenue, or you could spend that same time on a customer who could generate $100,000 in revenue.  Sales time is always better invested where there is the potential for the greatest return.

           It’s far easier to leverage a successful purchasing experience for the customer to another opportunity.   Instead of driving five miles to the next opportunity, I can walk down the hall.  And it’s far easier for my good contact to recommend me to the next key person in another department, than it is for a smaller customer to recommend me to his competitor across town.  Leverage was one of the key reasons why I was able to penetrate those 17 key accounts so fully.  

           Larger accounts are more sophisticated and generally require less ‘service’ time for the salesperson than smaller accounts who may be needy and constantly in need of extra time and attention from the salesperson.  In addition, they generally make decisions on a more objective-based set of criteria, whereas smaller accounts are more likely to react emotionally.  For a thoughtful salesperson, the sale is more attainable.

           In our Selling System, for example, we teach a system for ranking and prioritizing accounts based on their realistic potential. Those who implement that system often report sales increases in the multiples.  One client reported “a 73% increase in key account sales,” and another a ‘five-fold increase” for example.

           For the business owner or chief sales officer

           Focusing on a narrower niche allows you to specialize.in the internal operations of your business.  It’s one thing to prepare an operational system that will accommodate any kind of customer but it’s much... READ THE FULL ARTICLE HERE