5 Reasons You Are Not Getting Enough New Business

Established accounts are not as lucrative as in the past.

Therefore, you have to seek new business.

Of course, you know this.  You’ve tasked your sales teams to go get it. 

Unfortunately, they got so good at farming existing relationships they lost the manual on how to sell.

We see 5 pitfalls that limit lead generation and new business growth­­:

1. The Easy Button
2. Ineffective Prospecting
3. The Leaky Pipeline
4. Poor Planning
5. Focusing on the Deal and not the Customer

Easy Button

Invariably we find the first (and sometimes only) place they hunt is to go to Building Connected and look for bids posted by people they have never worked with or met before.  What are the chances!!!! Duh!

Click on their website and look at what Building Connected says are the benefits they offer a GC:

“Find the lowest bidder on the fly”.

Look, the software wasn’t built for you, the dealer.  It’s designed to screw you.  It destroys your margins and minimizes your relationships.

And, this is the pond everyone is fishing in. 

 A couple of ideas:

1. Build relationships with GC’s way before the bid goes into the feeding frenzy of Building Connected
2. Go fish with End Users—which takes us to the next topic….

Ineffective Prospecting

There are two main sales processes—

1. Getting the First Hello
2. Hello to Close

Let’s consider the Getting the First Hello:

• 80% of sales are made on 5^th to the 12^th contact
• The average salesperson gives up after two attempts

Clearly, few of us like to cold call.  It’s hard.  We fear rejection.  Yet if you just followed up a 3^rd or 4^th time you would be in the rarified atmosphere of the rainmaker and your wins would skyrocket.

Yes, yes.  I know the problem.  You have other things to do—like prepare takeoffs, build estimates, check supply chains to see if you can even get materials for the job, submitting bids, managing change orders, job walks, billing etc. etc.

My own studies have found commercial contract salespeople only spend 6% of their week prospecting for new business.

With this limited time, it is hard for most salespeople to remember to follow up.  They have no system to prompt them other than a few pencil scratches on their desk blotter or a quick note in their calendar app.  And many fear calling “or bothering” their prospects.

Two improvement ideas for you:

1. You need a basic Customer Relationship Management System. (Reminders from Building Connected don’t count!)
2. Make it a discipline to make 5 phone calls to new prospects each day—this topic is covered in depth in the prior podcast entitled Eliminating Phone Call Phobia

The Leaky Pipeline—the Hello to Close Sales Process

Your pipeline is full of bids that have gotten past the hard part.  The Hello has been made.  You’ve been invited to bid.

You elected to go after them because you feel you have a fighting chance.

Here’s the thing.  Sales is all about the F word

Follow up!

Most of your bids will be competitive and part of an electronic bidding marketplace like Building Connected.

90% of salespeople put their bid in and wait for the GC to tell them whether they won the deal or not.

It’s not the GC’s job to run your sales campaign.

Their job is to get the best quote that mitigates their risk for the best price.

I cover the key techniques for doubling win rate in my book The Ultimate Formula for Winning Work with General Contractors

Here are two:

1. Do not submit a bid before talking to the Bid Manager or Project Manager. They are selling to you at this point so take advantage and ask questions that will help you tailor your bid to their needs (ones which are not necessarily spelt out in the formal electronic documentation.
2. Submit the review in person or by Zoom. DO NOT EMAIL IT!!!  Look, you spent a lot of time and money preparing it, so take the extra step and convey it in person.  It will make you stand out

Poor Planning

“Alice asked the Cheshire Cat, who was sitting in a tree, “What road do I take?”
The cat asked, “Where do you want to go?”
“I don’t know,” Alice answered.
“Then,” said the cat, “it really doesn’t matter, does it?”

Very rarely do we see a written sales plan.  If you don’t know who you want to sell to then anyone will do.  This opportunistic approach has them bouncing around chasing all types of segments and never penetrating any.

Idea:

1. Have your salespeople name 5 target GC’s (with PM names) and one end user segment. Then review progress at least bi-weekly.

Focusing on the Deal Not the Lifetime Customer

We salespeople are predators.  We love the thrill of the chase.  But once we have wrestled our prey to the ground, we lose interest.  The deal is done.

That level of thinking will only yield at best, one deal.  Instead think of the lifetime value of a customer.  You could sell multiple deals over the years and possibly enjoy a noncompetitive relationship.

The customer is an asset that needs to be nurtured.

I talked to a commercial contractor who had been in business 15 years.  I suggested we reach out to the many thousands of happy customers they had worked with in the past.

An embarrassed silence ensued.  Turns out they had the billing address and base info but no contact data and tel numbers for the key buyers!

So easy idea for you to implement

1. Make a list of your past customers
   • Dig through your calendars and get their info
   • Check your phone logs
   • Work with your contract admin staff to get the numbers
   • Ask your PM who was the person in charge

2. Create a simple promotion (we have a 10% off special)
3. Create a simple landing page
4. Write 4-5 simple emails and load into your CRM
   • Hi how are you? We miss you
   • Hey still need a new (insert your service or product)
   • Check out our offer
   • Send the offer again
5. Send emails
6. Follow up

Effective lead generation is vital for your business to thrive in boom times as well as lows.

Hopefully these ideas will help you fill your pipeline with healthy high margin business

If you enjoyed the show please give me a review on Apple Podcasts!

Also, check out my new book:

The Ultimate Formula for Winning Work With General Contractors.

It's packed with tips to help you double your sales conversion rates!