There is a subset of the individuals or people within all of that territory or market which is comprised of those who need what you have to offer and they know that they need it. There is some recognition on their part; they have already acknowledged, for example, that their point A or Current State is not ideal. They have some kind of a pain, problem, need, challenge, concern, issue – they’ve got something that they’re dissatisfied with in their CurrentState and are probably looking for some kind of a solution. They might even have some specific results in mind or might even be so far along that they’ve talked with some of our competitors and have an idea of what they want to buy.
These people tend to find us and reach out to us. They may go out and they type something into a search engine and find our website and fill out the form to contact us online. They might call the local office, if they can find a phone number, or they respond to the outbound marketing that we do. If we’re doing outbound telemarketing, for example, these folks put up their hand and respond saying “Yes, I do need some help with that.” These people will find us, or they are easy for us to find.
There is another subsection of people within this larger territory or market who need what we have to offer, but just don’t know it yet. This is where the real opportunity lies. Now, I want every one of those, and I refer to them as the yellow patch. I want to find out about every lead, every buying process going on out there, every active projectI can, but I also want to see if I can create some projects that don’t yet exist. This is represented by the larger patch, what I call the green patch.
This green patch, if you will, is much larger and reflects that there is a lot more opportunity lying out there which has to be created or could be created versus those projects or needs that already exist. What we have to do then is to go out and create them, and that takes some skill and most definitely some practice. It requires getting outside of our comfort zone, but it can be done. What I want to encourage you to do, most of all, is to decide not to only live in that little yellow circle. If you need to increase your pipeline, if you need to find business not only for this month, but for the next month and the months following after that, looking out a little more long-term towards the future, I challenge you to expand outside that yellow circle into that green patch of opportunities that don’t yet exist and go out and create them.