Prospecting 101

In my first post in my #sharpenthesaw series I spoke about why it is important that to define a business development strategy.

Most companies I encounter in my career struggle with a business development strategy. The first problem they have is assuming everyone is a potential customer (prospect).

They seem to think that they more names they have to call the better. The opposite is true. You will have far more success with a small, targeted list than you would with a large unqualified list.

A quick word about qualification. When you're qualifying your customer you're trying to establish their willingness to buy. What you want to establish is the following:

1. Do they have the problem your company solves?
2. Is the problem big enough to spend the kind of money you're charging to fix the problem?
3. Do they have the ability to buy
4. Do they have the authority to purchase?
5. Are they inclined to purchase (more importantly; are they inclined to buy from you)
6. What is the size of the expected order

In today's post I want to discuss how to look for potential customers (prospects). Qualification is important here. You want to find the right companies and the right kind of people in those companies that need your product.

To qualify correctly you need to understand your value proposition

Understanding of your value proposition helps you qualify properly. This means you understand which prospects might gain the most from your products. If you don't here are some ideas on how to define your value proposition:

1. Can you define your product from your customer's point of view. If you have a strong customer relationship ask that customer to define it for you. This can be helpful and enlightening.
2. What are the specific benefits the customer wants from your product?
3. Where are your ideal customers situated geographically?
4. What is happening in their business when the customer buys your product?
5. What is your customer's buying strategy? Do they send out requests for quotations (RFQ). Do they tender their business or do they invite a bunch of competitors to pitch for their business?
6. What vertical markets align well with your product?

You need to be quite sure that the people you are contacting have the problem your company fixes. Once you have a handle on what companies need your products and which do not then you can start building a list.

I would highly suggest using a CRM (customer relationship management) system. No, Excel is not a CRM system (I can write a whole post on why this is the case). I use Pipedrive as it is easy to use, cost effective and has many of the plugins that Salesforce does.

To find prospects I would suggest using Linkedin. The advanced search allows you to define locations, vertical markets and companies you're looking for. I use tools such as boolean and X-ray search to prospect. I'll discuss these in another post.

Once you have a small list of targeted leads you need to load them in to your CRM system and find their contact details. Now you're ready for the fun part: smiling and dialing. More about actually cold calling in one of my next posts.

I am trying to give an overview of what I do here. If there is anything you'd like me to explain leave a comment below and describe what you need help with.

We know that recovering from this crisis will be challenging. I write these posts to help other sales professionals. I hope the posts will help others get ready to hit the ground running when the crisis ends. #sharpenthesaw