Replenishers

As a proud Englishman, there’s one culturally omnipresent institution of which I am decidedly unhappy to be associated with. The BBC. There are others too. Yet the demise of this particular taxpayer funded national broadcaster would in my view dramatically improve the daily life of my compatriots. It cannot come soon enough for me. Fortunately, its incapacity for re-invention married with an accelerating speed of media and demographic change should render it defunct with a flailing slide into morbidity.

So with my stance, I was intrigued to read a long broadsheet piece about their flagship live cricket commentary show. One which lost me as a listener long ago. Despite my evident position slap-bang in their ideal listener range. I travel the world to follow the wonderful sport and consume all sorts of opinion on the game. But not for a good while theirs. From this article I note this reveal;

The BBC has a word for the 35-54-year-olds it is trying to target with some of its output. They are “replenishers”, the people who will replace their older listeners as they die off. They are the key people to target in the next chapter of [their] history.

I was instantly struck by this framing.

I remember how it dawned on me another layer of successful Sales planning existed. When I felt less than exalted upon winning an order in my cubrep days. Rather than bask in deal glory, I grimaced at now having one less prospect.

Funnel management ought be a constant. To neglect this activity will hold you back.

Prime the pump. Fill the hopper. Build your suspects.

There is an argument for more formalised sales operations to focus our marketing colleagues main aim on providing tomorrow’s bulging bag of qualified leads.

Yet many of us must do this for ourselves.

Such programs often require a snappy label.

I’ve come across a fair few down the years.

Nurture. Feedership. Tunnelling.

Yet here now arrives what I think is a decent fresh option.

Not only in chosen term, but also a defined trait. In cricket’s case a target age-range.

As a quick web search informs, the verb replenish definition is a key sustainable selling construct;

1. fill (something) up again
2. restore (a stock or supply) to a former level or condition

Your Replenish program seeks Replenishers.

And how can you not be inspired by its etymology;

“late Middle English (in the sense ‘supply abundantly’): from Old French repleniss-, lengthened stem of replenir, from re- ‘again’ (also expressing intensive force) + plenir ‘fill’ (from Latin plenus ‘full’).”

So where’s your plan to abundantly re-supply with intensive force your prospects of the next Sales period?