Squirrels, Deer and Elephants - How Focusing on the Right Clients Makes You More Money

In this episode of the No BS Sales School Podcast, Walker shares a story about a successful saleswoman who left her corporate job to start her own business. He shares her challenges with managing a diverse range of products and clients, and Walker offers an insightful analogy to help her focus on the most profitable opportunities.0:00:05: Introduction0:00:29: The guest's background and challenges with managing a diverse range of products and clients.0:01:08: Walker introduces an analogy to help the guest focus on the most profitable opportunities.0:02:07: Walker shares the analogy of squirrels, deer, and elephants to help the guest identify her ideal client.0:03:32: Walker summarizes the analogy and encourages listeners to think about their prospects as squirrels, deer, and elephants.0:04:37: Walker explains that squirrels are small clients that can wear you out with their service demands, but they often bring more squirrels. Elephants are big clients that take a lot of work to close and often come with scope creep, leading to reduced margins. Any client that makes up more than 25% of revenue is considered an elephant.0:07:42: Walker explains that when faced with the possibility of losing an elephant client, most people will lower their prices to keep the client, leading to reduced margins and possibly losing the client anyway.0:08:13: Walker explains that relying too heavily on elephant clients can lead to diminished service and losing clients, leaving you with nothing if you haven't had time to prospect.0:08:54: Walker introduces deer as the sweet spot for sales, and encourages listeners to focus their marketing, service, and prospecting efforts on their deer clients.0:09:25: Walker advises listeners to define their sweet spot by revenue generated or profitability and be able to describe their ideal clients to others.0:10:21: Walker emphasizes the importance of being intentional about who you're calling on and working on the deer clients, while recognizing and diluting elephant clients that make up more than 25% of revenue.0:11:22: Walker advises the guest on focusing on specific products that have a short sales cycle and can bring in cash quickly to build up the business, while continuing to work on the longer-term projects.0:13:16: Walker encourages listeners to think about their situation and where they want to spend most of their time, focusing on the deer clients and the products that can bring in cash quickly.0:13:43: Walker offers to help listeners with their sales strategy. Contact him at walker@walkermake.com.0:13:50: Walker encourages listeners to write a quick review of the show and subscribe, and offers a free mini-course on seven expensive sales mistakes at 7SalesMistakes.com.Quotable Phrases"Sales is the most lucrative skill in the world, period.""Most sales advice out there today is outdated, cheesy and can even keep you from getting the deals that can make all the difference in your career.""If you're the right person, you've got enough drive and commitment, and you're willing to suffer a little bit, that's a great way to go for some people.""Think about your prospects, people you're calling on who've not yet given you money, and your existing customers, clients as squirrels, deer, elephants.""There's nothing wrong with any of them.""Elephants are anything that's more than, say, 25% of your revenue. If any one client is more than 25% of your revenue, consider them to be an elephant.""When faced with the possibility of losing an elephant client, most people will lower their prices to keep the client, leading to reduced margins and possibly losing the client anyway.""Relying too heavily on elephant clients can lead to diminished service and losing clients, leaving you with nothing if yo