How often should I send out emails? How much time should I spend prospecting? Should I focus my attention on cold calling or social media marketing?
Woah, hang on. Let’s calm it down.
Yes, all these questions are common among salespeople who want to increase their sales.
But trying to tackle it all in one is daunting enough for even the very best sales reps.
Luckily for you, here at Excelerate360, we have spent years perfecting the right strategy for prospecting new and warm sales lead for your business.
Over 30 years, in fact.
That’s why we understand the important role prospecting plays in the sales cycle.
This article will help you create the ideal customer profile, set up qualified sales meetings and turn prospects into customers.
So, if you want to improve your business’ sales process, and turn potential prospects into profitable customers, then you’re in the right place.
There’s a lot to unpack, so go ahead and bookmark this page for your reference.
First of all, let’s establish exactly what prospecting is.
What is Prospecting?
Prospecting is the very first step you need to take in your business sales strategy.
For us, this is where the fun begins.
As a business, this is your chance to identify your target market, clearly define your ideal customer, identify their pain points, and decide how you as a company can solve these issues effectively.
Prospecting is so important as it allows your business to create a database of potential customers and use this data as a means of targeted communication.
At E360, we are very metrics-driven, which is why we can’t stress enough the importance of this data collection in your sales process.
To help you get started with prospecting, we have created a step-by-step guide to point you in the right direction.
A Step-by-Step Guide to Your Sales Prospecting Process
According to marketing expert, Jay Bear, “Every business has a story to tell.”
Now, it is time to tell yours.
In what many consider to be the bible of storytelling, ‘The Hero’s Journey’, Joseph Campbell outlines how to tell a great story.
To put it VERY simply, he describes how, to become a hero, a protagonist must answer the call to adventure, leave the known world into the unknown, and return having changed.
In sales, for your company to become the hero, it must embark on the same journey.
First, it must have a service or product worth selling – something that will truly solve a problem for its target market.
Does your company have that service? Great!
Then, it must answer the call to adventure, venture into the unknown world of sales prospecting, defeat the inevitable antagonist of rejection and return home with an abundance of qualified sales leads.
Are you still with me?
Fantastic.
Then let’s embark on an adventure and discuss the 5-step guide to sales prospecting success.
Step 1 – Self Reflection
Successful prospecting will not neglect this process.
Your approach should take a holistic, reflective view of your company, before you even think about sending out the first cold email.
If your current sales process isn’t working how you would like it to, the chances are you need to revisit this process.
Once you have nailed down who your ideal customer is, the rest of your sales process will run much more smoothly.
But how do you conduct this process?
Firstly, take a look at your current clientele.
Take the time to collect data about your clients’ age range, sector, gender, geographical location and spending power.
Consider why they wanted to work with you in the first place – what were their goals, fears, wants and needs?
If you don’t know, ask them.
Also, ask yourself who your favourite clients are, and why.
Once you have conducted this initial research, you will have real data pointing at your ideal customer profile (ICP).
This means your chances of sales prospecting success will now increase dramatically.
Step 2- Messaging
As the great wordsmith and salesman Elmer Wheeler once said, “Don’t sell the steak, sell the sizzle.”
When drafting a cold email, or performing a sales pitch, you must first capture your potential buyer’s attention and then give them a reason to listen or read on.
One method of doing this is to keep things simple.
Just like when selling face to face, explain how your service will benefit them in the same way you’d explain it to your friend at the pub.
Secondly, make it all about them – and make it personal.
Prospect’s will switch off if you talk too much about your business and what it does.
So, switch it up.
Talk about how your service will benefit them.
If in doubt, follow this 5-step method for cold emailing:
- Talk about your prospects pain points
- Describe how your service will solve them
- Explain why this will be great for them personally (save time, money, stress etc.)
- Back it up with social proof (case studies)
- Add in a call to action
And NOW you’re ready to answer the call to adventure, which brings us to step 3.
Step 3 – Call to adventure
“Once you demonstrate that you care and will go the extra mile to produce added value, your prospective clients will want you to succeed.” ― Anthony Iannarino, The Only Sales Guide You’ll Ever Need
The key word to take from this quote is ‘demonstrate’.
How exactly do we do that?
That’s where your company needs expert sales staff with an abundance of interpersonal skills to help them bring in successful results.
These skills will align with your messaging to do identify pain points, solve them and qualify the leads to ensure they fit into your ideal customer profile.
So, expert salespeople, it’s now time to do your thing!
Hit SEND on that email, take advantage of LinkedIn Sales Navigator and keep picking up that phone for another sales pitch.
Don’t worry, we’ll go over the best methods for contacting sales leads in greater detail later in this article.
Step 4 – Suspects versus Prospects
No, this isn’t a crime scene, but you will need to play detective.
This step is all about identifying the companies and individuals within them that align with your business goals from step 1.
It’s also about identifying the ones that don’t.
The problem is, you will be starting in the dark, with little indication as to whether these ‘suspects’ will have any chance of becoming qualified leads.
A prospect is somebody you will have more information about and will have already had previous interactions with.
So, how do you know the difference between leads who want to buy and those who don’t?
The best way of identifying serious prospects is to ask qualifying questions during your sales conversation.
Qualifying questions are queries that help you decipher whether a lead is seriously considering purchasing your service, or not.
Examples of qualifying questions include:
“What problem are you attempting to solve?”
“How would your business look in the coming months without solving this problem?”
“What methods have you already tried to solve this problem?”
“Are you okay to jump on a call to discuss this further?”
“What budget do you have in mind?”
“Who do you need to get clearance from to make this business decision?”
“How quickly are you hoping to see results?”
“When do you plan on making a decision?”
The importance of qualifying questions is to gain more insight into your lead and attempt to drive the conversation further along the sales funnel.
If a lead shows no signs of need or urgency for your service, backs away from speaking over the phone, or isn’t the decision maker, they will likely be wasting your time.
Step 5 – Evaluation
Congratulations, you answered the call to adventure.
By this stage you will have identified potential customers, engaged with them, and hopefully set up some high-quality sales qualified meetings.
But now it’s time to return home.
This is where we prepare for the cycle to begin again, meaning more self-reflection is required.
Remember, let’s not get too bogged down with feeling at this stage, but instead let the metrics do the talking.
What do the numbers tell you about what worked, and what didn’t?
Did you get more response through email, or phone calls?
Were sales lost at the negotiating stage? If so, why?
What was the conversion rate for each of your sales team?
To be successful in B2B sales, you must be receptive to changing your tactics if they aren’t delivering results.
Are your sales reps wasting time on leads that will never convert? Or do they have a low conversion rate?
Is the messaging from step 2 hitting the mark? You can evaluate this by looking at the click-through rate (CTR).
According to Campaign Monitor, a good email open rate is between 17-28%, while a good CTR is around 2-5%.
Don’t be afraid to tweak your tactics and test them regularly to find out what works for your business.
The Best Methods for Prospecting
Let’s talk tactics.
We’ll assume you know your product’s unique selling points inside out; you also know how they add value to your ideal customer profile.
But what now?
What is the best method for attracting your sales prospects and moving them closer towards becoming a customer?
Let’s take a look at the options:
Email prospecting is an essential addition to your sales arsenal.
With the software available to do so, you can now send out a mass number of outreach email messages and keep them personalised at the same time.
Be sure to include a catchy subject line in your sales emails; one that creates a sense of urgency and intrigue.
Also, remember that people often aren’t blessed with time. So, keep your email copy snackable.
Remember to align with your product messaging, offering real value to your sales prospects – this is what will entice them.
Last, but by no means least, include a call to action to improve your response rates.
Phone calls
Cold calls may seem like a dated method of prospecting, but that is simply not true.
Data collected by ValueSelling Associates suggests that phone calls are the second most successful method of B2B sales, behind word-of-mouth referrals (more on those later).
When dealing with a cold prospect over the phone, you don’t have much time to make an impact.
Much like with an email, you have to capture the prospective buyer’s attention instantly, making an impact and generating intrigue within the first 30 seconds.
Also, with cold outreach, do not be shaken by rejection – you may need to make an average of 100 calls to find that one ideal prospect to make it all worthwhile.
Social Selling
Social selling utilises social media channels to perform a more personalised approach to your sales prospecting efforts.
On platforms such as LinkedIn, you will be able to send a connection request to prospects, or message them directly with a premium package.
This method allows you to build more trusted relationships and gain easier access to key decision makers.
According to LinkedIn themselves, 78% of businesses that use social selling outperform those who don’t.
Word-of-Mouth Referrals
Securing clients through word-of-mouth is a great feeling.
It means you’re doing something right, offering your clients value and engaging in successful customer service.
Well done if this is happening in your company.
But you may be thinking, ‘Where does this fit into the sales prospecting process?’
One mistake that sales professionals often make is omitting word-of-mouth from their sales prospecting approach.
By contacting your existing, happy clients, and asking them for a referrals, you can generate instant inbound prospecting with much warmer leads, thanks to your mutual connection.
Most will be happy to do this for free, but you could incentivise referrals by offering commission.
How often should I follow up when Prospecting?
It’s important to add variety to your sales cadences.
When conducting timely follow ups, switch up your method between LinkedIn, email and phone call.
When prospecting, it’s important to add different strings to your bow.
That’s why you must be implementing all of these sales prospecting methods into your strategy as you seek to reign in potential customers.
“Prospecting is hard, emotionally draining work, and it is the price you pay to earn a high income.” – Jeb Blount, Sales Specialist.
We get it. Sales prospecting is hard.
If it was easy, every company would immediately become a huge, resounding success.
It costs a lot of time, resources and mental resilience to successful convert cold leads into real business on a consistent basis.
Especially while trying to run the day-to-day life of your own company on top of it.
But don’t give up.
At E360, we’ve seen first-hand many companies turn their prospecting fortunes around.
If you need help with your prospecting results, fill out our contact form and we’ll get in touch to help you in any way we can.
