Connected2Fiber just celebrated its 3rd birthday two months ago and, as a startup, we are growing, experimenting, evolving, and learning every day. With experimentation on products and services with existing and potential customers comes learning, growth, and great upside. However, there is a cost to this process, which is time. This is one of the most valuable commodities in our business and something we can never get back. So, we work constantly, focusing on the right “next thing” to maximize our time and efforts.
In the last blog, 3 Pillars of Growth, we took a deeper look at Participation; this blog will discuss how Targeting can accelerate your sales process and revenue growth while maximizing your time and effort.
Prospects – a lead is a lead is a lead
Your marketing team is hard at work creating leads at the top of your sales funnel to generate significant interest from prospects. While having a lot of leads at the top of the funnel is good, working on the best leads (or having the right leads to start with) is key to closing more business. Spending valuable time working on prospects that are never going to buy is time and effort you cannot recoup. The other area of consideration is a request for proposals (RFP), which are leads ready to buy but may not necessarily be worth your time pursuing. While each connectivity provider will have its own qualification process, there are two core elements to focus on when targeting the leads (or RFPs) to work on: who is the prospect and who else is competing for their business.
Tenants – the good, the bad, and the ugly
Customers. Users. Tenants. To us, these are the same thing. When your sales team is prospecting or working through qualified leads, considering how each industry (or market segment) budgets for connectivity is a thought process many of our customers go through. Strip malls with local services might not need large bandwidth like a multi-location hospital system. Having a metric like Estimated Telco Spend based on vertical markets, size of the company, number of locations, and other related factors would give you a good idea of the potential revenue a specific tenant could be worth. Targeting the right prospects will help you use your time wisely and for the most financial gain.
Competitive Landscape – who else is out there?
All companies have competitors and while connectivity is a competitive marketplace, competition still matters. There is a large difference between a location with minimal providers, local exchange carrier, and cable company, and one with numerous companies in place, as would occur near a large data center. It’s critical not just for your RFP process to understand this landscape but also for how you plan construction, expansion, and marketing efforts. Dense competitive markets are typically dense because of the relative need for service. If you are already present and ready to provide services, targeting these kinds of areas is a great use of your existing infrastructure. Areas with low competition (or where you must build out new fiber lines) can be advantageous but also might be a large capital expenditure. Keeping your sights set on the competitive landscape is the other critical part of spending your time (and money) in the right areas and on the right opportunities.
On a side note, another way to look at this type of network intelligence is from a partnership perspective. This dimension allows you to think not just about your coverage but also about your business partners.
Final Thought – setting your sights
In our world where Location Matters (accurate latitude and longitude), we think of prospects in terms of a building’s tenants while keeping an eye on the competition. Generally speaking “Big Shiny Buildings” should be attractive targets with lots of potential customers. However, understanding how much appetite each has for connectivity and balancing that thought process with who else is in your markets will keep your efforts laser-focused.
Make 2019 the year your targeting looks for the most advantageous locations and the right sales, marketing, and construction opportunities.
