As a business owner, CEO, or sales manager, you know firsthand how challenging it can be acquire new customers, let alone bring in big clients and close big deals.
But what if there was an effective sales strategy specifically designed to help you expand your customer base and improve your customer acquisition in major ways?
Enter the Dream 100 Strategy – a proven client acquisition strategy used by some of the biggest companies across industries to land their dream clients and ultimately boost their long-term success through customer lifetime value.
The Dream 100 Strategy is an innovative, powerful, and practical approach to customer acquisition used in sales and marketing. Leveraged correctly, it can be instrumental in opening up new opportunities with large businesses by positioning yourself as the perfect partner.
In this blog post, we’ll explain everything you need to know about harnessing the immense power of The Dream 100 Strategy.
From refining your list of targets to developing strategies that engage potential customers, we’ll uncover why employing this approach could be invaluable when securing large client opportunities. This acquisition strategy will bring your marketing efforts to the next level, bolster customer retention, reduce customer churn, encourage repeat purchases, and bring your revenue to new heights.
So, if you’re ready to take your sales game up a notch – let’s dive right in.
The Origins of the Dream 100 Strategy (or How The Dream 100 Strategy Got Started)
The Dream 100 Strategy was developed and popularized by (the late) entrepreneur, speaker, and business advisor Chet Holmes in the mid-1990s. According to Holmes, the strategy was designed to help companies target large businesses that would be most beneficial for them to partner with.
Chet Holmes worked for Charlie Munger, one of the most celebrated investors in the world. He was a salesman at Munger’s company, where he had to make a hundred calls to potential clients per day. However, he wasn’t happy with the results.
He noticed that the top salesperson in the company was a woman making three times as many sales as the runner-up. Wanting to learn her secret, he repeatedly asked her for help.
One day, the woman finally gave in and took him to lunch.
She explained that her customer acquisition secret involved only focusing on ideal clients.
With this new knowledge, Holmes went through his list of 2,200 leads and chose 167 of the most promising to focus on.
Fast forward six months… And Holmes didn’t close a single deal.
Surprised?
Munger thought so as well. When he reached out to Holmes to find out what was wrong, Holmes asked for Munger’s trust.
Five minutes later, Holmes closed the first deal. And in the next six months, he completed 11 more, including some of the largest orders in the company’s history.
Chet Holmes says:
The goal of the Dream 100 is to take your ideal buyers from “I’ve never heard of this company” to “What is this company I keep hearing about?” to “I think I’ve heard of that company” to “Yes, I’ve heard of that company” to “Yes, I do business with that company.”
Holmes went on to develop The Dream 100 Sales Strategy, a more affordable and effective customer acquisition strategy to land dream clients and stand out in your target market.
(From the Ultimate Sales Machine YouTube Channel: “Our founder Chet Holmes provides the story of the Dream 100 strategy and how it came into being while he was working for Charlie Munger.”)
Understanding the Dream 100 Strategy
Dream 100 is based on the idea that it’s more effective to focus sales efforts on a smaller number of dream clients than trying to reach a larger number of prospective customers.
Concentrating on dream clients specifically can create a powerful and focused marketing strategy tailored directly to them.
Essentially, when selling dream services or products, you should determine your dream clients first and then conduct market research to come up with an approach that meets the needs of that customer base.
This involves researching dream customers, understanding their buying or decision-making process, and creating sales and lead generation strategies tailored specifically for that target audience.
A dream client could be a large corporation or an individual in the top one percent of their industry—anyone who would majorly impact your bottom line if they chose you as their partner.
When pursuing these dream clients, it’s important to have the customer acquisition strategy to make contact with them and gain their trust to secure new business. This trust, of course, helps with customer retention too.
To do this successfully, using the Dream 100 Strategy means focusing solely on those ideal prospects (often through multiple channels), not just any leads but only those who will make the biggest difference in your business success – whether it’s revenues or brand recognition.
This way, you don’t waste time chasing after unqualified prospects that might lead nowhere.
By utilizing this method thoughtfully and strategically, businesses have found success repeatedly in acquiring big clients that propel them into even greater growth opportunities.
That’s why so many companies continue today to rely upon The Dream 100 Strategy as an invaluable sales tool for acquiring customers and securing dream clients – one capable of elevating their business into realms they never dreamed possible before!
That’s why so many companies continue today to rely upon The Dream 100 Strategy as an invaluable sales tool for securing dream clients –one capable of elevating their business into realms they never dreamed possible before!
A Deeper Dive Into the Dream 100 Strategy
To fully appreciate The Dream 100 Strategy as the core of your customer acquisition efforts, you first have to understand that there are two types of ideal clients:
Great clients
Dream clients
You’ll always have many more “great clients” than “dream clients” in your pool of potential customers – but the dream clients will make up 60%–80% of your revenue. It’s the 80/20 rule in action: “80% of your results come from only 20% of your clients.”
The Dream 100 Sales Strategy is a balance of attracting both great and dream clients with tactful communication and quality content.
The strategic customer acquisition process consists of seven essential steps:
Develop a strategic plan for your Dream 100.
Determine your Dream 100 client profile.
Create your Dream 100 list.
Design your Dream 100 marketing collateral.
Design your Dream 100 marketing plan.
Train your sales staff on the Dream 100 Strategy.
Launch your Dream 100.
Check out this related article on the 80/20 principle, also known as the Pareto principle, which states that roughly 80% of effects come from 20% of causes.
You can apply the 80/20 rule in any business model to highlight the importance of focusing on the most impactful and valuable activities to maximize efficiency and success.
Let’s take a closer look at each of these seven steps:
Step 1: Develop a Strategic Plan for Your Dream 100
With a clear framework present, you need a strategic approach to customer acquisition for finding your ideal clients.
The key here isn’t to come up with a complex processes for the strategy to improve your customer acquisition. In fact, the very opposite is true.
You need to keep things simple and straightforward to avoid bottlenecks and confusion.
Of course, a strategic plan isn’t a document that you create once and file away somewhere. It’s got to be a live document that your team will be working from. That’s part of the reason for making the plan simple and easy to understand for all.
You can use a range of software tools to gather customer data and develop your strategic plan. Alternatively, you can go old school and use pen and paper. It really doesn’t matter how you approach it, so long as you have a plan.
Step 2: Determine Your Dream 100 Client Profile
As they work on defining their ideal clients and building customer acquisition channels, the downfall for many business owners is an over-reliance on the broadest categories like revenue, the title of the decision maker, etc.
While that’s important, when it comes to your Dream 100 clients, the more relevant, targeted, and personal the messages of your marketing efforts – the higher the conversion rate.
Take into consideration the finest details of your ideal client’s life…
What are their buying habits?
What frustrations and stresses keep them up at night?
Where do they go to solve their problems?
What are the ultimate goals they set for themselves?
These are only some of the questions you must answer when developing your Dream 100 best client profile.
Of course, you should also focus on how your company can uniquely benefit these new customers…
Go through your top clients and find out what characteristics make them ideal
For most companies, 20% of the clients at the top contribute 80% of the revenue.
What attracts your best existing customers to your company?
What other Dream 100 targets can you identify that, as paying customers, would dramatically move the needle in your business?
Going forward, you’ll focus on everything that makes you want to work with these clients. It could be their story, persona, or even geographical location.
You should explore as much detail as possible while creating your best client profile.
Step 3: Create Your Dream 100 List
Having determined your best client profile, it’s time to make your Dream 100 list. This list should contain all the potential customers that fit your criteria.
As Chet Holmes says:
“If there were 100 clients that, if you’ve got them all, you could dramatically increase your business...”
Depending on the size of your market, you may not hit 100 companies that you want to work with… But the list can easily just have 20, 50, or however many businesses that meet the criteria. The number doesn’t matter nearly as much as the details attached to each potential customer.
This means that you’re going to have to use due diligence in defining those clients. On top of naming your ideal clients, you’re going to need information like:
Contact person
Title
Phone number, email, mailing address
Social media handles (like LinkedIn and Twitter)
During this market research, try your best to gather as many other relevant details as you can, such as looking at professional bios and social media posts to see what awards/recognitions a company or leader has earned, recent articles mentions, books published, etc.
Doing so will inform you about who you’ll be talking to across your various marketing channels.
Get to know your ideal clients, and you’ll have a much higher chance of closing the deal.
Step 4: Design Your Dream 100 Marketing Collateral
The fact is that only 3% of your customer base is ready to buy right now…
Because of this, you want a customer acquisition strategy that puts you on their radar, allows you to stay top of mind, and preemptively positions you as the obvious choice the moment they find themselves ready to buy what you have to offer.
For Dream 100 Strategies, this begins with your Dream 100 client becoming familiar with who you are…
To start, you want to retarget the entire list of Dream 100 clients (and those in the company that influence decisions) in places such as Adroll, Facebook, Google Display Network, and LinkedIn. This encompasses social media platforms, content marketing efforts, search engine optimization, paid advertising, email marketing, and beyond. This marketing spend (and the use of free services) is all about getting in front of your customer base.
The goal is to get them to say: “I see this company everywhere!”
Familiarity breeds trust.
Then you want to reach out to them using an omni-channel approach…
We work with our business coaching clients to develop a strategy that includes:
Email
LinkedIn
LinkedIn Voice Message
Telephone
Direct Mail
But we’re not talking about a “one-size fits all” approach like many outbound prospecting sales strategies.
For a Dream 100 client, you’ve got to do your research with an eye on making your marketing more creative, personal, and inviting. This is quality content based on diligent customer research.
Check out our related article on direct mail, “Is Direct Mail Marketing Still an Effective Strategy in an Increasingly Digital World?”
Step 5: Design Your Dream 100 Marketing Plan
The next stage of customer acquisition is putting your marketing efforts in motion. Once you’ve defined your marketing collateral, it’s time to plan ahead. This means creating a firm marketing schedule and content marketing strategy to stay top of mind.
In addition, your marketing implementation should be systematic and repeatable across your acquisition channels. The easiest way to make this happen is to create a marketing calendar and fill it with all your activities.
In the first month, for example, you could plan on pre-heating the list with retargeting and engaging with them (liking/commenting) on LinkedIn. At this stage, it’s not about direct sales or generating new business – instead it’s about sticking to the process as understanding that these leads will become rewarding customers.
The next month, perhaps use email, make a LinkedIn connection, and a phone call. Whatever your marketing collateral is, spread it throughout the calendar and execute accordingly.
Make sure you create a lead list inside of LinkedIn Sales Navigator. Several times a week, like and comment on their posts. This is an additional way to stay in front of them while, at the same time, giving them something they want (i.e., engagement).
Remember, this is a long-term strategy – you’re not going into this with the idea that you’ll get the results of your Dream 100 Strategy right away. You’re creating satisfied customers in the long run.
As the saying goes: patience pays off – and this is true of of your customer acquisition funnel as well.
Step 6: Train Your Sales Staff on The Dream 100 Strategy
According to a survey, words account for only 7% of communication. The rest isn’t about what you say, but how you say it…
A big mistake that many companies make with their customer acquisition efforts is not putting enough effort into training. If your staff isn’t fully prepared to handle your ideal clients, so much of your marketing efforts will go to waste.
Because of this, your sales staff should rehearse their scripts until they’re 100% confident in their skills. Even a slight change in tone (or hint that there’s a “pitch” coming) can have an outsized impact with potential customers.
Remember, Dream 100 clients aren’t a one-size fits all situation… This strong customer acquisition strategy requires a deep understanding of the client and why working with you is the best decision that they could make for their business.
Step 7: Launch Your Dream 100
If you’ve executed the first six steps properly, this one should be as easy as it gets. With a tight marketing plan in place to reach your best potential customers, you’re going to execute it for months to come.
In the first six months or so, you’re building momentum.
Persistence and patience are paramount here. So many businesses give up just before their customer acquisition process starts working.
Believe in your strategy and stay faithful to the plan.
Setting suitable objectives and identifying strategies or opportunities are vital to growing a business. Nevertheless, you need to turn your ideas into actions if you want to achieve your end goals. Read about tactical planning in this related piece.
What Makes the Dream 100 Strategy so Effective?
The Dream 100 Strategy can be effective for a number of reasons:
It helps businesses focus their efforts on a specific group of high-value prospects: By identifying and prioritizing the 100 individuals or organizations most likely to be interested in their products or services, businesses can more effectively allocate their resources and increase their chances of making successful sales.
It allows businesses to create targeted and effective marketing campaigns: By focusing on a specific group of prospects, companies can create customized marketing campaigns that are more likely to resonate with those prospects and increase the chances of making a sale.
It enables businesses to build relationships with key influencers and decision-makers: Many of the prospects on a Dream 100 list are likely to be influential individuals or organizations within their industries. By building relationships with these prospects, businesses can gain access to valuable networks and resources to help them grow and succeed.
It helps businesses measure their progress and identify areas for improvement: By keeping track of their efforts and the results they see as they work through their Dream 100 list, businesses can measure their progress and identify any areas where they may need to adjust their sales and marketing strategy.
Going Long: A Final Word About The Dream 100 Strategy
The Dream 100 Strategy isn’t for those who are looking for instant gratification. It’s for serious business leaders looking to achieve great things in the long run.
As you can see, there’s nothing complicated about the strategy. Time, effort, and attention to detail are all you’re going to need.
When defining your ideal client profile, be thorough and gather as much information as possible.
This will allow you to tailor your marketing strategy to the most ideal clients. All that’s left after that is perseverance – and to keep working at it.
Schedule a free strategy session if you need help executing the Dream 100 Strategy.
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