As you may know, my business is helping companies gain market share by becoming more fearless competitors.  What is a “fearless competitor?”

To illustrate what that means, let’s wish to use an example from nature that we can also apply to business.

When we think of fearless and ferocious, most people picture a lion — the King of beasts.

Now let’s apply that analogy to sales.

You’ve just been appointed the head of a pride of lions.  All of the lions in your pride are hungry.  (Needing deals.)  So you tell your lions to go out, kill some gazelles and bring them back — just like a VP, Sales might tell his troops to go out and sign new customers.

The lions go out in two groups:

• Group One hustles and runs all over the place looking for gazelles.  They run faster and faster, looking everywhere.   As time goes on, they grow hungrier and more desperate.
• Group Two moves slowly and figures out where gazelles feed, rest and travel.  They find those spots, hide and lie in wait.  Gazelles show up and they bag their prey.

Group One comes back at the end of the day — exhausted, frustrated and famished — dreading the next day.

Group Two comes back with half a dozen gazelles.  Group Two has a feast while Group One goes hungry and frustrated.

Unfortunately, many sales leaders are like Group One today.  They tell their salespeople it is a numbers game — more calls means more deals.  In one particularly egregious example, a small company owner handed the Yellow Pages to a salesperson and told her to keep dialing.  Another CEO I know told his salespeople it is a numbers game — more calls means more leads.

But this is a fallacy.  Hustle with a lack of planning is a recipe for failure.

The noted sales expert, Jill Konrath, advises salespeople to slow down and think.  Plan out your calls.

That is the second group of lions — the ones who had the feast.  Slow down, plan your calls and be the King of Beasts.   That is a fearless, ferocious sales organization.

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For companies looking for best practices in b2b lead generation who wish to improve the way they acquire new customers using demand generation, Find New Customers is the place to go.  CSO Insights says companies need to improve the way they generate leads and implement processes for business to business lead generation.

Jeff Ogden, the Fearless Competitor, is a demand generation expert and sales leader, as well as the President of Find New Customers, a lead generation company, who helps businesses create lead generation campaigns and continually publishes the best lead generation ideas, so his readers can determine the best lead generation strategy to find new customers.  He can be reached at (516) 284-4930 or mailto:[email protected].