Based on article by Guido Kuznicki https://www.linkedin.com/in/gkuznicki/
Group targets by Elephants , Deer , Rabbits , Mice and Flies – based on the ARPA (Annual Revenue Per Account)
Size of account varies from industry to industry so research this before segmenting opportunities
Elephants – Enterprise Sales
- Long sales cycle with many stakeholders
- Expect a procurement process
- Value of a single contract is significant
- Expect high levels of customisation and service
- Expect long payment periods
- Expect long contract periods
- Requires experiences team of sales people and account managers
- The level of your point of contact and their ability to advocate in the organisations structure is key to closing
- Pre-existing relationships and getting powerful stakeholders to seek you out Is more efficient that pure outbound sales
- The number of prospects is low enough that a tiered sales team with BDRs is not required
Deer – Predictable Revenue
- Longer sales cycle, with multiple stakeholders
- Expect a procurement process
- Expect high levels of service, but less demands on customisation
- Expect longer payment periods
- Requires outbound sales efforts from BDRs, and strong experiences sales people to close
- Requires account managers to support
- Large enough that you can forecast business models with them
- Large enough that a loss of an account would be troublesome
- Ideally you wan these accounts to renew consistently
- Cold calling and outbound sales is an efficient route to new business
- Leverging sales partners to help close these deals can also be beneficial
- Aim for a prix-fix style menu for customization
Rabbits –
- Ticket is lowers so you need more to sustain your business
- A combination of outbound in a Deer style, coupled with marketing that drives inbound leads works best
- Leverging sales partners to help close these deals can also be beneficial
- Deals should close relatively quicker with more standard offerings and contract terms
- Payment terms should be upfront or with very short payment cycles
- Avoid customisation or service in the offering.
- Aim for a prix-fix style menu for customisation.
- You can expect higher churn and more competitor comparison in this type of client
- Onboarding and experience interacting with your business is key
Mice and Flies –
- Small accounts
- Sales process should be focused on marketing efforts pulling in leads
- Paid media can be an option so long as you can manage the costs and margins relative to LTV
- Aim to automate the sales process as much as possible
- Aim to automate the support and client success as much as possible
- Aim to automate the renewal experience as much as possible
- Tools and processes designed for managing these size of clients is essential
- Churn and Retention are important but need to be scalable and automated
You probably want to start with Deers, gaining a reasonable base on recurring revenue and suing the deer to establish consistency and process before expanding to Rabbits which provide you with a chance to establish partnerships and build a reputation, and allow you to systemise and automate your processes, then you can establish initiatives that target elephants and finally mice and flies.