Choosing Your Battles

Posted by Brenda Keener Jun 28, 2007

Trying to be all things to all people is the way to run your business into the ground! When you are in the rapid growth stage of any business, qualifying your customers become one of the most important things you can do.

How do you do that? You must set a probability that this deal will result in revenue. This is determined by doing a background check to see if the customer can pay, looking at what the competition offers and at what price, and your fit to the customer's unique needs.

If a deal is a "long shot" it is best to make sure that your efforts at winning it don't interfere with the real and closable deals you have in the works.

Marketing has a responsibility to guide the sales team in setting priorities, as it is the marketing team that has all the latest competitive data and target customer list!

Many young companies have lost by trying to handle more than the collective bandwidth of the key people could handle.

Setting clear priorities and sticking with them is the way to win!