Customers are Your Best Prospects, Qualify Carefully

According to Peter Drucker's research, you have a:

•  1:14 chance of selling to a new prospect
•  1:4 chance of selling to someone who has bought from you in the past
•  1:2 chance of selling to a current customer.

Before you go out and bombard your current customers with sales calls, keep one key thing in mind: even existing customers aren't necessarily qualified prospects for an additional purchase. As we mentioned in the previous post about qualified prospects, your current customers must still:

1. Have a need for an additional product/service and be aware of it.
2. Have the legitimate authority and ability to buy the additional product/service.
3. Have a sense of urgency about making a buying decision.
4. Trust you and your organization.
5. Be willing listen to what you have to say.

In other words, you are sitting on acres of diamonds, but you've got to know where to dig!

(Statistics from What's Working in Sales Management, August 26, 2005, page 3.)