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Prospecting
All pain, no gain?
Every one has to do it, no one
likes it. Without new sales businesses fail, it
happens every day, in every industry. Why are
some companies more successful at doing this
then others? Based on my consulting with
companies I have found that the ones who take a
disciplined approach, follow time management
skills, and have the proper tools succeed.
Start with how you approach prospecting. How
much of your time do you spend, are you seeing
the results you expect? My guess is you may not
be.
My starting point with sales people I work with
is to first look at your current pipeline and
quarterly forecast. This will help you to
determine the percentage of your time you should
spend on prospecting. My belief is that if you
want to be successful and make your numbers each
month and quarter you need to set a minimum
amount of your time each week prospecting new
business. This amount may go up or down each
month depending on your pipeline and forecast.
You may have guessed it by now; it’s all about
time management. If you have a strong pipeline
you may want to spend 75% of your time moving
your deals through the sales process and closing
business. If you’re new to a sales position, or
your pipeline is weaker than you would like,
then you may increase your prospecting to 50%
and the balance of the time closing business you
have already identified.
How do I effectively prospect? A very good
question and one I’m asked nearly every time I
work with a company in developing an effective
prospecting program. First determine how much of
your time you are going to spend on prospecting.
If it’s 25%, that represents 10 hours a week.
Next set a goal on how many calls per hour you
will make. As an example, if your number is 6
per hour then your goal is 60 calls for the
week. Your next step is to identify the target
industries you’re going to call and determine
the level of contact you want to make. Now comes
the hard work. In order to be effective and
deliver a message that contains value, one that
has that prospect agreeing to your request for a
meeting, you must do some research. Spend time
upfront understanding the industry your prospect
is in – how do the trends in that industry
effect their business. If they’re a public
company, look at their quarterly or annual
report and see what their business goals for the
year are. Now create your script. Effective
prospecting is not just picking up the phone and
“winging it”. It’s taking all you learned about
their industry and their business and creating a
value message that makes sense to the prospect
you are trying to reach.
Often I’m asked; where do I find the names to
call? There are many sources available on the
Internet. My only caution is that you must
remember that it’s all about time management. If
you spend 30 minutes looking for names, you have
taken time away from calling new prospects. I
have established a relationship with
TheSalesTrack. This is an on-demand prospecting
tool and database that allows sales people the
ability to quickly identify prospects in any
industry (both commercial and residential names
are available). What I like about this tool is
the many search capabilities it has. You can
search by over 20 different criteria. As an
example, once you identify an industry you are
targeting you can enter the SIC code of the
industry, the zip code or area code you are
targeting, the revenue size of the companies,
and the number of employees. Within seconds you
get results. By searching each company listing
you find the key decision makers you are looking
for. This process takes seconds, rather than
minutes or hours, making you more productive
with the time you have allocated to prospecting.
You can also import this data directly into any
CRM product, as well as Word or Excel, and
continue using the information. This eliminates
the need to buy costly mailing lists.
Lastly, measure your success. When I work with
companies I establish a success criteria. At the
end of the day it has to be more than, “I made
the calls”. Successful programs measure not only
how many calls have been made, but also the
effectiveness of the message, new number of
appointments, pipeline increase, and ultimately
new business.
If you’re struggling with new account
generation, prospecting, and adding new name
accounts, I can help. And, if you’re interested
in learning more about TheSalesTrack, feel free
to call or email me for a demo.
Good
luck and good selling!
Russ Lombardo
PEAK
Sales Consulting, LLC
russ@peaksalesconsulting.com
(702)
655-5652
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