Prospecting plan
Define your target in four criteria.
A useful target is not a description, it is a number. If you cannot say how many companies it holds, it is not a target.
In short
A commercial target is defined by four combinable criteria: sector of activity, company size, geographic area, and the trigger event that creates the need. The validity test is simple: if you cannot put a number on how many companies it contains, it is too vague to prospect.
The four criteria, and why you need all four
Sector tells you what the company does, and therefore which problems it runs into. Size tells you who decides and how fast: below ten staff it is the owner, above fifty there is a department and a process. Area tells you whether you can travel, which changes everything in trades where the visit makes the sale.
The fourth criterion is the one almost nobody uses, and the most profitable: the trigger. A company that has just hired, moved, raised money or changed leadership is far more reachable than the same company six months earlier. The trigger does not shrink your market, it tells you what order to work it in.
The number test
« SMEs » cannot be counted. « Communications agencies with 10 to 49 staff in the North West » can be, and the figure is public. Turning adjectives into a number is not a stylistic exercise: it answers three concrete questions.
Is the market big enough to meet your objectives. How long before you exhaust it, that is, after how many weeks will you have spoken to everyone once. And should you widen, on size or on area, before you even start.
Too broad
You will never manage to personalise an opening line, so your reply rates stay on the floor.
Too narrow
You burn through the list in three weeks and find yourself calling the same people again too soon.
About right
Enough accounts for six months at your planned pace, homogeneous enough that one message speaks to all of them.
Start from your best current clients
The most reliable method is not to imagine a target but to describe the one you already serve well. Take your five best clients, the ones who pay without haggling and come back, and look for what they have in common across the four criteria.
You will often discover that your real target is not the one you advertise. That is a good sign: it is grounded in facts rather than intentions.
Frequently asked questions
Can you work several targets at once?
Technically yes, usefully no, at first. Two segments run in parallel halve the volume on each and therefore double the time before you know which one works.
Should you exclude very small companies?
It depends on your average deal and cycle length. If selling to a three-person business takes as much effort as selling to a thirty-person one for a fifth of the value, excluding them is a profitability decision, not a snobbish one.
How do you find triggers?
Incorporations, changes of director and new sites are public. Hiring shows up in job adverts. Relocations show up as address changes in the register.
Keep track of every follow-up
Lea CRM keeps your contacts, deals and reminders in one place, and shows you every morning what needs doing today.