How do you add better clients in less time? Every successful entrepreneur I’ve ever met has had one problem in common during their businesses growth stage. They all believed that their sales were not coming as fast as they needed to be to grow a successful organization.

Why is this and, as importantly, what can we do to change this situation for your business?

I believe many organizations fail to reach critical sales volume in the time required because their sales professionals are not trained in identifying the best opportunities for success with new clients. Earlier this week we talked about having a sales professional work with clients on issues the client has already identified.

This means the client is already aware of the problem and, if you’re lucky, has failed in achieving any success in reaching a solution for their needs. I believe that sales professionals must become better at diagnosing problems during the early stages of your business or products rollouts.

I’m suggesting if you make finding better clients a priority the more quickly and profitably your business grows. I‘ve seen many of my clients spend significant time trying to educate their clients on new possibilities while missing opportunities for easier success and future growth over the long term.

Successful entrepreneurs are good at seeing future possibilities within potential client organizations. Many are visionaries. They want to solve their client’s problems quickly and effectively.  The problem is the client doesn’t want these new solutions. The customer has more pressing problems or opportunities that could offer you a faster sale. And that’s what they want to focus on, not future possibilities.

As a sales professional, you need to keep both the present problem and the future possibilities in mind.  You also need to be aware of your own biases as to what you sell your clients.  These biases shape how you are perceived by your client.  You can be seen as a trusted advisor or just another sales person, the choice is yours.

Its paradoxical, the more complicated the problem, the more likely you are to solve the problem for the client. The more stakeholders involved in creating a solution, the better your sales and marketing team will be at looking at the possibilities for success. If you want greater success getting new clients, focus on fewer clients.

One of the advantages your organization has is its ability to see the bigger issues impacting a client’s performance and their markets opportunities.  Your organization has much more exposure to the many challenges your client faces than they do.  Your sales professional needs to help develop an agenda with new clients that allows you to help them solve their problem because you understand the major problems impacting their productivity.

The other intangible of increasing the speed of your new business development success is you are working with the right leaders who own the problem.  You have invested time to understand what and how this individual is impacted by the problem. You also know what has been tried and failed.  You are able to provide your clients with the right expertise to help solve the problem.

To be successful in the new economy your organization must be able to move critical information around your organization very quickly. Your team members must be able to work with clients’ stakeholders as peers and, if needed, as mentors. Your people must become a critical members of your client’s decision making team.

Next week, we share several ideas on how to make this happen. See you next week.