Prospect Development 101: Before You Nurture, Know Their Nature

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Before asking about nurture best practices, ask a question that sounds obvious and requires serious consideration: what is the nature of the buyer? A client selling multi-million-dollar software to hospital executives needs a significantly different strategy than one selling entertainment systems for gas pumps to small convenience-store owners.

The factors go well beyond industry: time required to close, decision-making group size, complexity of contracting, the buyer’s education level, and the budget and revenue of target companies. A program serving a C-level decision group in a hospital isn’t just longer — a 12–24 month sales cycle versus 6–12 — every affected department must be considered as a champion or influencer of the sale.

And start early: relationships with early-stage buyers, like early friendships, are more enduring, deeper and preferred to those made later.