Targets, Rankings, and Opportunities
Hey!
I’m coming to you live from the Substack email platform today.
Hopefully, this makes the reading experience a little bit better. I heard from a few folks that were having issues with Mailchimp and a few folks I know had switched over to Substack, so here we are.
Anyway!
How is everyone holding up?
It is still summer here in the northern hemisphere, but if you put me to a test…I’d still struggle to tell you what time it was really.
I bring that up because we will start heading into the back half of the year very soon. And, for all of us, we are going to try to put our heads down and finish off the year strong or as strongly as possible since most of us are figuring out how to run our businesses in a WFH and pandemic environment.
The big idea here has always been around strategy. And, the two building blocks of a solid strategy and solid business include:
What is the value we want to create?
Who will be our buyer?
One thing I keep coming back to over and over when working with folks is that we often don’t do a very good job of identifying our buyers.
Hell, in some of the places I spend time, they still try and tell me that everyone can be their buyer.
While that may be true in theory, I’d bet dollars to donuts that the reality of that isn’t very good.
So I wanted to spend a few moments this morning, outlining a process I’ve been thinking through the last few weeks to help me stay focused and pull myself through the pandemic.
This is going to look like sales, but really it relates to any area where you have to sell your idea.
First, begin by defining your targets.
Who are the folks you really can deliver value for or who you can really help or who you really need to get on board with an idea?
Make a list of these folks.
If you are thinking about sales, I try to keep these lists around 50-60 with no more than 100 prime targets at a time.
This doesn’t mean you turn down other folks, but it does mean you spend a lot more time focusing your energy on attacking your prime targets.
Second, rank them.
You might use a number system or you might use a vertical system.
You can even combine the two and rank the verticals and then the companies or targets within the vertical.
You do you on this one.
Think through the value you can offer to the folks on this list.
It could be relatively the same or it could be something that is business-specific.
The key is that you need to spend a little bit of time thinking through an attack plan that is targeted and that you can deliver on consistently.
Maybe the most important thing is you can filter in and out wise uses of your efforts or unwise uses of your efforts.
That’s what I’ve been working on.
Maybe this will help you find some ideas to finish your year strong as well.
Let me know what you think.
Dave
BTW, I’m working on putting together some sort of virtual mastermind group to help people refocus their strategies for heading through and out of the pandemic. If you are interested in learning more about this, send me a note at dave@davewakeman.com with mastermind in the subject line.