Table
of Contents
o
Lead
Prospecting: How to Identify Your Targeted Audience
·
Convert More Cold Calls To
Sales.
o
Cold Call Training For B2B
Teams.
Lead Prospecting
“My inside sales team needs to do a better job at generating
targeted leads but trying to get them to prospect is like pulling teeth. Any
suggestions?”
I remember like it was
yesterday when I started working for a company that I was really excited about,
and on day one, my new boss told me I would need to prospect for leads. My
enthusiasm was immediately replaced with dread and fear.
Closers don’t usually
like spending time “prospecting” and just hearing the words “lead prospecting”
turned my stomach sour.
And then he taught me one
of the most valuable secrets to sales success:
Lead
Prospecting: How to Identify Your Targeted Audience
Something I feared and
despised turned into one of my greatest assets, and that, combined with my own
unique process on how to sell by phone, had me leading the sales pack in short
order.
Lead
Prospecting; Step 1:
Target prospects that are
already spending money to generate the type of results you offer.
When most salespeople
start prospecting, they contact random people and try to convince those
prospects that they need to start doing XYZ. This is a huge waste of time.
When my new boss opened
my eyes with easy-to-follow lead prospecting tips such as “call those who are
already spending money” it just made total sense – and I felt a little “duh”
moment – but nobody ever shared that simple concept with me before.
All of my previous
managers simply said “smile, dial, and good luck”.
So, how do you target
prospects that are already spending money trying to achieve the results you
offer?
Here’s one example:
Since we sold online
advertising, marketing, and lead services to high-end car dealers, my boss gave
me two high-end car dealer magazines. He said to go through these magazines and
TAG all of the FULL PAGE AD dealers and ignore those with half or quarter-page
ads.
His theory was that the
ones with the full-page ads already knew the value of advertising and the small
page ads were prospects that either had small budgets or were just testing the
waters and that I wouldn’t want to waste my time trying to convince them to up
their budget or convince them that going bigger is better.
Ok, so you don’t sell
advertising. I get it. But the theory still works across all platforms.
Let’s look at a few
different industries. Let’s say you sell:
·
Office cleaning services – Square feet of office space (do you
want to target small offices or would you rather call clients that have
large/multiple offices?)
·
Shipping / Logistics – Number of shipments per week/month.
(Would you rather land a new account that ships once in a while or tons
everyday day/week?)
·
Heating and Cooling AC / Supplies – Do you want to try and sell
to a mom-and-pop AC repair person or an AC heating and cooling company that has
5 different locations? Top AC companies advertise on the radio, print, and tv.
Target those companies to resell your products.
·
SEO Service – Look at those doing the PAID Google Adwords. They
are spending money to drive leads. If they could spend less money getting into
the top organic section of Google, they will love it.
Are you starting to get
the picture? If you are going to seek and find your best prospects, you have to
know what you are looking for, rather than simply smile and dial.
Lead
Prospecting; Step 2:
Verticals
Next, my new boss taught
me how to go after verticals that we helped – make a list and then call them to
let them know what we are currently doing for XYZ Company to get in the door.
So for example, if we had
a few Ferrari dealers using our service, it wasn’t hard to build a list of all
the Ferrari dealers in the US (and their sales ranking order) and add them to
the prospecting hit list.
And the opening value
statement was easy and effective too:
“Hi (PROSPECTS NAME) this
is (YOUR NAME) with (YOUR COMPANY NAME). Reason for my call is we’re helping
(Ferrari dealers 1, 2 and 3) move cars off the lot by generating an average of
10% more pre-qualified leads per month…”
What GM of a car
dealership is going to say “No, thanks” after hearing that?
OK so, so far we have two
techniques for lead prospecting:
·
Target prospects that are already spending money for services
that will generate the type of results you provide.
·
Go vertical. There’s a saying “sell to common folk and go broke.
Sell to a niche and get rich.”
Lead
Prospecting; Step 3:
When to prospect for new
leads.
The third technique I was
taught was WHEN to prospect.
Now, in the scenario I’ve
been using (me starting at a new company and being told to prospect) I was told
to NOT get on the phone and sell until I had my prospecting list built and
ready to roll. My manager shared with me that most salespeople waste their
“selling time” prospecting. Meaning, instead of making dials, they are
“researching” etc.
I was instructed to
generate a list ranging from 200 to 500 prospects that matched the criteria I
was given, before getting on the phone.
Now I know most of you
reading this are already deep into the employment phase of your job and are
wondering what you should do.
The answer is simple:
Once you’ve identified
what your top targeted audience looks like and where to find them, prospect
before work, after work, or once all of your calls for the day have been
completed.
One of the worst things
you can do is research/prospect for new leads during the morning call time (9
am on) because while you are researching for leads, a more organized,
motivated, and determined salesperson that works for your competition is
calling your prospects while you are researching for them.
– Michael Pedone
Michael Pedone teaches
inside sales teams how to pick up the phone and close
business. He is the CEO/FOUNDER of SalesBuzz.com – An online sales training company.
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