Lesson 3 of 8 · Selling in oil and gas
The position on the show is blunt: you cannot start going after new business unless you have a list of the new business you want to go after. Not a territory, not a vertical. A list, with company names on it.
The working version is about ten companies you would like to do business with. Small enough to hold in your head, long enough that one bad quarter does not empty it.
One slot on that list is different. It is the client you are almost one hundred percent convinced you will never do business with, and would love to. On the show's own list that slot was Apple.
The point of the dream client is not that you expect to win it this year. It is that you keep spending real time on it, getting to know different people who work there, so that if the door ever opens you are not a stranger.
Everything after this page assumes the list exists. The funnel you are about to build has to be filled with someone.
One slot is the client you are almost certain you will never win. Keep it there.
Source: The Fundamentals. How to Add New Logo’s and Customers, episode 13 of the Oil & Gas Sales & Marketing Podcast.
The list is not random, and the show gives the actual filter: the companies on it tend to be large, at least $250 million and above, and they tend to have either sold to oil and gas before or have a product they are trying to break into the industry with. A target list without a size floor is not a list, it is a wish.
Source: The Fundamentals. How to Add New Logo’s and Customers, episode 13 of the Oil & Gas Sales & Marketing Podcast.
With names in hand, you need somewhere to track what happens to them.
The next step
If the way energy buyers actually buy is costing you deals, talk it through with ModalPoint, the go-to-market firm Matthew Bertram runs. A 30-minute discovery call: no scope, no commitment, and a mutual NDA before anything substantive. You get a reply within one business day, and the first call is with someone who works in the sector.