The Secrets of Selling, 2nd Edition

What mixture of large and small companies should you

target?

This is another common question asked in sales. The debate

balances on the truism that larger accounts offer richer long-

term rewards but tend to take longer to win. Smaller accounts

are usually easier to win but the returns are generally lower.

The answer is that in the medium to long term you will do

much better targeting large companies. Size does matter.

The theory behind finding new business

The toughest part of selling is getting the initial meetings with

the appropriate people. If you can do this, and so get a stream

of good quality leads coming in, you will be a success. This is

because, as a salesperson, you are either searching for prospects

or selling to them. This means you need methods that make

your searching as efficient as possible so that you maximise the

amount of time you spend talking to a receptive market.

Here is an example of what ‘talking to a receptive market’

really means. In the early twentieth century there was a sewing

machine salesperson working the American Midwest. At that

time, sewing machines were a new and relatively expensive

item so they were only bought by a few people. That meant

that when the salesperson arrived in a new town, he knew he

would be faced with the problem of having to knock on lots of

doors to find the relatively few people who had the money, and

the desire, to buy from him. He was spending most of his time

searching for a market, not selling to a market.

Selling nowadays can seem an equally daunting task because

so many companies cater for markets that are just as niche

and specialised as that in our example. It is often the case that

there are only a few thousand, or even a few hundred, people