“It’s not WHAT you know…It’s what you DO with what you know!”
NEW BUSINESS
It’s either coming from your existing customer base or from new customers. Keeping the “funnel” filled with qualified prospects requires multiple prospecting methods used in a planned, systematic, and measurable method.
GETTING STARTED – PROFILE THE PROSPECT
Have your salespeople learn what your ideal prospect looks like, how to qualify them and who to call on. It’s an industry, a segment, a specific users group, volume/usage target, etc.
FUNAMENTAL PROSPECTING METHODS
Build your foundation on multiple pillars. Leverage effort by developing multiple prospecting methods and techniques. Reliance on one method makes us vulnerable. Focus on more than one strategy to the target group.
- Pillar: Cold Calling – THE basic method of finding new businesses.
- Pillar: Referral Selling – The most powerful and least actively used method of prospecting. Qualified referrals are 60+% more likely to buy.
- Pillar: Nurture Marketing Campaigns – Old school snail mail – mixed with phone calls, LinkedIn messaging, a couple automatic emails…done well and executed – it works
- Pillar: Trade Shows – Prospect exhibitors to get direct referrals to decision makers
- Pillar: Public Speaking – Put yourself in front of groups of prospective customers
- Pillar: eBlast – Don’t rely on this – most emails don’t get read…however, this is a shotgun approach and takes minimal effort…don’t expect someone to buy because you sent an email…you still need to pick up the phone as this is a supplement (And in reality, chances are around 5% that your email gets opened by a human being).
- Pillar: Client Competitors – “Like attracts like” in terms of opportunities. Go after them – somebody else is!”
- Pillar: Former Customers – Change is constant. People and situations change. “A customer is always a customer”…Reconnect with them.
- Pillar: Publish – become a recognized expert – prospects will call when they need help. Remember: YOU ARE AN EXPERT!
Yield Management Process:
Track your peoples’ activities and results (In your CRM, which should help you sell…not just act as a database). Determine what’s working, which activities have the highest payouts/ROI.
When your people leverage multiple methods of contacts, it will result in large numbers of qualified prospects and keep your businesses’ lifeblood flowing.
