As an individual contributor, getting started is challenging and at first glance the lowest hanging opportunity appears to be in the picked-through files of those who came before you.
Aristotle wrote, “A job well begun is half done.” In my experience, the best approach is to:
- Clearly understand the profile of the companies that have best leveraged your products and services. This information is often buried in the “reference account” data.
- Educate yourself about how they optimized your solution and the features that made your offering unique.
- Once you have a handle on the type of accounts that fit, go a step further to identify who the key stakeholders are that directly benefited from the decision.
- Do your homework, learn all that you can about why they chose your company over the competition.
- Once you have that justification reasonably defined, find out as much as you can about the business case created that closed the deal. This will include the calculation that produced the ROI and you might uncover the personal motivation of the key decision maker.
Sounds like a lot of work? If you can do this, or ensure that someone can accurately piece together this information, you will have a strong base from which you can establish:
- Winning (high probability) vertical profile
- Individual credibility (narrative)
- Company credibility
- Target buyer profile
- Unique differentiators & practical leverage (customer perspective)
- Clear understanding of business driver for the key stakeholder
Getting clarity on the target is essential to achievement. We’re all disciplined and hard-working… Unfortunately, that isn’t enough. I have coached hundreds of salespeople who “work hard.”
There’s a saying- “I’ve been climbing the ladder for years only to find out that it was on the wrong wall.”
Know the target: It’s READY, aim, fire.
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