Expanding and enhancing your sales pipeline just got a whole lot easier

Economic activity has rebounded strongly in most countries after the pandemic. Record growth has been seen in wide sections of the economy over the last quarter, as supply struggled to match 18 months of pent-up demand flooding into markets. However, after an explosive first quarter of growth, after restrictions were eased, economic reality appears to be starting to bite. Growth has fallen to its lowest level in 6 months as slower consumer spending in the face of rising infection rates.

For business development professionals, the task of finding growth through new customer acquisition in these convoluted and uncertain times is an ongoing challenge. Ensuring you are maximising revenue from current customers and monitoring the stability of long-term customers has been complicated by the pandemic.

Any manager or director trusted to achieve a sales budget has several key strategic questions that, if answered effectively and reviewed regularly, can be the difference between success and missed targets. These include:

• How many other companies are there out there that match the profile of our current customer base? How big is our potential market?
• Who are the high growth/cash rich prospects in our target market that we should be focusing most attention on?
• Which high growth markets should we be exploring as potential diversification opportunities and who are the best targets within them?
• Which customers, currently sat in our CRM, have the highest growth / most cash and how do we generate more revenue from them?
• Which of our current customers are in financial peril and how do we reduce exposure?

To help sales professionals to assess, monitor and evolve their answers to these questions, Plimsoll has launched an interactive Business Development Tool. It provides instant access to all the up to the minute intelligence you need to grow your business. Key features include:

Upload your current list of customers & we will find other prospects that match the profile

A comprehensive “lookalike” audience of every potential customer should be the foundation on which every sales strategy is built. Plimsoll’s Business Development Tool takes the stress and time out of building such a list and ensures you never miss a potential target.

Simply upload your current CRM list (or part of it) into our secure platform and we will match every possible target that matches the profile. In minutes you will have a complete list of potential targets, an assessment of their financial position, their growth rates, and a breakdown of the key decision-makers in each business.

While your competitors are scrolling through company names in Google and phone directories, you will be finding the best companies to do business with that meet your specific criteria. What’s more, such as the granularity of our intelligence, you can target right down to even the most specialist of markets.

If you want to know how many other customers are out there for you, Plimsoll can show you today.

Search for the prospects based on your specific criteria

Your sales prospecting criteria is unique to you. Whether it is based on sector, industry, region, size, growth rate, creditworthiness or a mixture of these, Plimsoll has developed a dynamic, multi-function search to get you a list of targets.

Simply tell our powerful search system what you are looking for and in less than a minute it will tell you the companies that meet it. Plimsoll has reduced target acquisition from months to minutes.

With intuitive graphical and written summary analysis, you will be able to work down your target list and find the fastest-growing, those with the most resources and much more.

Identify weaknesses in your CRM

Financial difficulty at a key customer is sensitive for all involved. As a sales professional, you don’t want to turn away revenue but can’t expose your business to bad debts and non-payment. Insight into the financial stability of your current customers allows you to tailor how you deal with them without ruining relationships.

Plimsoll Business Development Tool operates perfectly alongside your usual credit check services. While the latter will measure immediate creditworthiness, Plimsoll’s unique 5-year health profiling model will allow you to spot longer-term, developing problems at your key customers. Better to be prepared than be caught out by surprise customer failure.

Spot the companies in your CRM that you should be doing more business with

The adage that it’s easier to do business with current customers than to find new ones remains true to this day. They know what you do and trust you can deliver what you promise. Doing business with you is less risky than finding a new partner.

This pot of people is the most important sales resource your company has. You have probably spent a fortune building it up over the years. But how much do you know about those companies that reside on your CRM and could you be doing more?

Plimsoll’s new Business Development Tool is designed to give you much richer insight into the companies behind the names on your invoices. We believe all companies should have an additional layer of insight into their CRM so they can:

• Focus more resources on fast-growing customers that are most likely to become high-value accounts
• Look for cash-rich companies in your CRM that offer you more price elasticity
• Highlight those in your CRM that are losing sales in their market so you can develop sales pitches that highlight how your products/services can help arrest their slump
• Develop targeted pricing and sales strategies based on company intelligence

No two clients are the same. Their pain points and needs are nuanced. Gaining as much intelligence on those in your current CRM will allow you to tailor your sales funnel activity far more effectively and based on their need and the problems you can solve for them.

Spot new markets you could pivot towards

One feature of the business news over the past 18 months has been the consequences of having too narrow a market. Serving a very small customer base leaves you vulnerable to changes in circumstances and your fortunes become too intrinsically linked to that of your customer.

Plimsoll provides a host of tools to help you identify alternate, high growth markets you might wish to service in future. We can help you to understand:

• Which markets offer the best returns
• The key benchmarks in the markets that you could move into
• The strongest players in those markets and how much power they exert

Moving into a new market is difficult. There are established players with expertise, experience and a customer base that knows them. Being armed with as much information on threats and opportunities will give you the best chance of penetrating new markets. Plimsoll will provide you with on-demand, up to date intelligence on any market you are considering.

Plimsoll believes in-depth knowledge about the companies you sell to, the markets you serve and the opportunities you have yet to consider is the key to successful growth. We also believe that type of intelligence should be on-demand, up to date and easy to digest.

For more information about the service and how it can assist you in your own sales growth activities please visit www.plimsoll.co.uk or call our team on 01642 626400 to talk to one of our dedicated team.