026: Packing Your Pipeline with Low-Hanging Fruit
Learn a simple four-part framework that helps you identify and capitalize on your most promising sales opportunities—whether they're new prospects, current clients, or ones that got away.
Today's newsletter is for you if you're experiencing any of these problems:
Your sales efforts feel scattered, not strategic.
You lack a systematic way to identify and prioritize high-value opportunities.
You're spending too much time pursuing leads who don't convert into ideal clients.
You have a nagging feeling you're leaving money on the table with existing clients.
You've lost valuable clients in the past and aren't sure if or how to win them back.
Overview
The most successful B2B founders and sales reps I know build their pipeline by systematically identifying opportunities across four distinct types of ‘farmland’ to maximize their ‘yield’ on their sales efforts.
Farmland 1: New: Desirable fields yet to be acquired
Farmland 2: Underdeveloped: Existing plots with room to grow
Farmland 3: Neglected: Once-fertile ground needing attention
Farmland 4: Lost: Previously productive land worth reclaiming.
So, start thinking of your prospects and clients as farmland.
This reframe gets you focused on sales as cultivation—not transaction—which improves your odds of long-term success.
How? Use the 4-Farmland Matrix to identify and capture the lowest-hanging fruit opportunities.
Here’s how it works:
The Criteria: Ideal Client Profile (ICP)
The starting point is to clearly define your company’s most desirable farmland.
This is your ICP—ideal customer profile.
The most efficient and productive way to clarify your ICP is to analyze your existing clients to identify which farmland you want to…
Pursue:
Who do we love working with?
Why do we love working with them?
What are their characteristics (industry, business size, budget, personal traits, etc.)?
Where can we find more like them?
AND Avoid:
Who is not a good fit for us?
Why is that?
What are their characteristics (industry, business size, budget, personal traits, etc.)?
What are the red flags to look for?
With ICP clarity, you can identify and focus on the farmlands that offer maximum yield.
Now, let's explore each type of farmland in detail.
The 4-Farmland Matrix (4FM)
Farmland 1: New
Farmland 1 focuses on identifying and targeting new, high-value prospects that match your ideal client profile but aren't yet doing business with you.
This is about being strategic with your prospecting efforts and building a focused list of organizations that share key characteristics with your most successful current clients.
Rather than casting a wide net, you're deliberately pursuing the opportunities most likely to convert and deliver long-term value.
Question:
What desirable farmland (potential accounts) in our market do we have yet to acquire?
Action:
Build our list of high-value targets to pursue.
Farmland 2: Underdeveloped
Farmland 2 focuses on identifying untapped potential within your existing client relationships—accounts where you've established trust but haven't yet maximized the opportunity.
These are your current clients who could benefit from additional products or services, where expanding your footprint could create more value for both parties.
By systematically evaluating these opportunities for cross-selling and upselling, you're making the most of relationships you've already cultivated instead of always chasing new business.
Question:
What current farmland (active clients) do we manage that is still underdeveloped?
Action:
Build our list of potential cross-sell/ upsell opportunities with current clients.
Farmland 3: Neglected
Farmland 3 represents current client relationships that have underperformed their potential—not because of poor fit, but because they haven't received the attention they deserve.
These are accounts where a stronger focus and renewed engagement could revitalize the relationship and uncover fresh opportunities.
By systematically identifying these neglected accounts and giving them proper attention, you can often unlock significant value from relationships that have gone stagnant simply due to a lack of nurturing.
Question:
What current farmland do we manage that has underperformed but could yield a larger harvest if we give it more attention?
Action:
Build our list of clients we’ve neglected who should get more attention.
Farmland 4: Lost
Farmland 4 represents the opportunity to reclaim valuable relationships with former clients who left your business in the last 24 months.
Instead of writing off lost accounts permanently, this approach involves carefully analyzing which relationships might be worth rekindling—particularly where organizational changes, new decision-makers, or evolved offerings could lead to a more successful partnership.
The focus isn't on trying to win back every lost client, but rather on identifying those where significant changes suggest a genuine opportunity for a fresh start.
Questions:
What farmland have we lost in the past two years? Do we have a full accounting as to why we lost them? Has anything changed since we lost them to make that “land” reacquirable?
Action:
Build our list of lost clients we should reengage.
The Next Step
Once you’ve built your initial lists for each of the four types of farmland, how do you proceed?
Let’s begin by breaking down the process for capturing Farmland 1 opportunities, which I’ll share with you here in the Systematic Selling Newsletter next Wednesday, November 20.
Sean M. Lyden is the founder and CEO of Systematic Selling, a sales systems and coaching company for growth-minded SMB founders and owners looking to scale their sales (without the chaos).
PS: CEOP is Now on Audible👇
This book is for you if you want to scale your business but keep finding yourself getting in the way.
