. Sales Prospecting - Prospecting
Sources of Leads
A lead is any supply of information that might be converted to a sale. Leads may be produced by both within your business and external to your business; these two areas are covered within the following:
Typical sources of leads
Existing customers Trade directories Internal inquiries Print media Library resources Networking Internet
Existing customers
Cold calling sales techniques - Mainly underused because many organisations are frightened to inquire about the million-dollar question - have you any idea of anyone else who would want to consider my products and services? Never embarrass myself to inquire about this, the most valuable question you can actually ask is made for the chance to get a referral. Ask the consumer when you can make use of them like a reference, with all the customer as a reference usually decreases the perceived risk for potential future customers. Also an element of trust is instilled early with the person (or business) that you have been known due to their association with your existing customer.
Trade directories
Facts about potential prospects might be in the form of industry newsletters and business CD directories. Generate a system of subscribing (at no cost obviously) to relevant industry newsletters, municipality newsletters, know about as numerous opportunities as you can for future business. Subscribe to newsletters in e-mail format (preferably HTML because it's easier to read) these will likely then conveniently drop in your in-box on the frequency you've got requested. Spend a couple of minutes each day checking these; I do this primary thing and very last thing everyday religiously, in order to ensure that I'm not really missing any opportunities i wouldn't otherwise learn about.
Internal inquiries
Sales training blog tips - Be sure you possess a system in place that promotes leads, make sure customer comments is given to the proper people. Have regular staff network meetings, I did previously call these meetings BBS - workplace sessions, whereby every Monday morning key staff (who've direct customer contact) attended this meeting and contribute recalling the era of the previous week, customer contact components of interest, and general discussion focusing around every sales possibility inside the business from other experiences within the last week. Also involving your team in every aspects of the business cannot help but foster team building and also the development of a good harmonious working place, not to mention the chance to grow the company from all of these meetings!
Print media
Spending time to see your industry magazines lounge chair somewhere trade journals offer contributes to followup which you hadn't considered previously. Trade journals are a fantastic source of information as your target audience would be reading, advertising or even writing editorials during these kinds of publications. Local government newsletters will also be a useful source of information providing such information as opportunities to sell to them and also better, from time to time, the chance to tender or bid on upcoming contract work or any other similar opportunities. These would also be of a higher value proposition to your business!
Another successful lead strategy i followed in early stages of my opportunity was every week to go through all jobs in advertisements from your paper. You will need to select the best day when the majority of the ads appear, in my case it had been the Saturday edition. Sure there are numerous, many advertisers inside the paper and i also would only examine those advertisers who were not using a recruitment consultant (direct company advertising). I would further cull this by looking limited to the advertisements for positions (jobs) that were during my specific special areas of practice, in other words my target audience.
My strategy is usually to cut each one of these ads out from the newspaper and paste them into a scrap book, noting near the top of the page the date the advertisement appeared. In carefully considering each of these ads, you'll normally begin to see the company name, the specific person to answer inside the ad, sometimes the e-mail address in most cases a telephone number. I'd then await maybe two months, maximum 90 days then call the quantity from the ad and request anyone because position (that was advertised) and then prospect for this person using my elevator statement (see below).
Whilst this might be considered a bit of a long shot, it's nevertheless, another chance to generate leads and gain some business in places that your competitors may not have considered. You will be amazed at the final results, perhaps you could even get a job offer because of your inspired research or like what went down to me, be offered a lucrative consulting opportunity when I was at front of the prospect (I discovered through applying this process), I used to be required to train her sales people over these prospecting techniques!
Now exactly how good is the fact that!
An elevator statement is a brief two or three minute pitch concerning your business. Utilizing your words economically fire in some statistics, no room for technology jargon here, give a concise pitch in what you do, adding a convincer why the chance should talk with you! Remember the elevator statement can be like a CV it is made to enable you to get a gathering (or perhaps an interview when it comes to the CV).
Library resources
Selling techniques from Claude Whitacre - In many local libraries there is certainly often a wealth of material which can be accessed to create possible leads to your business. In my local library for example there's a business database which may be accessed from your library and remotely over the Internet using my library membership card number. Also just reading the neighborhood library notice board every so often may also be a chance to business.
Also in my hometown Melbourne we have a State Library that is a insightful information for businesses as well as the means of lead generation which I have utilised successfully since 2002. You may have to research to find out if there is an equivalent to circumstances library in your local area. My State library for example supplies a reference business database which enables me to interrogate and check the database according to any criteria I choose.
For instance:
Size of business, by turnover and employees. Location of economic, by state, city/suburb, or postcode. Whether or otherwise not the business enterprise has a website. Whether or otherwise not the business is quality assured (e.g. ISO: 9001). Whether they export or not. Major brands or services offered. Contact numbers and position titles of key senior staff.
This now enables me to do searches on the forms of businesses (by industry segment) which i have experienced previous success with, or those companies that present opportunities that i can prospect to and commence the qualifying process. So for me personally each interrogation or search amounts to finding three main areas, they are:
Industry segment Size of economic Location of business
After i input these 3 search criteria (and further refine each of these areas as required) I can then see precisely what companies I will prospect to over the subsequent period. Usually most of the library resources cost nothing, you'll normally pay only for that printing with this material, as unfortunately in some instances you're not able to download this info (i.e. in your USB stick).
Whether you have this sort of resource available to you or otherwise, you ought to continually choose a approach to research which will improve your prospecting activities, focusing across the key aspects of industry segment, sized business, and site of business. These key areas should ideally match with your previous experience (your previous employment), your abilities, your abilities, your capacity to produce, your rivals, along with your location.
Networking
Networking could be the most cost-effective approach to increase your business, word-of-mouth marketing, referral marketing, are all types of networking. Look for the possiblility to meet folks your marketplace at:
Business breakfasts Seminars and events at your local management institute Local government small-business seminars Local business and community events Exhibitions and trade shows
Even go ahead and take chance to execute a presentation on the particular subject round the industry and technology you could assist. We have carried this out more often than not particularly with my municipality where We have presented on the subject, and then at the end inside the final slides, Presented a background along with a soft promote for my particular services which i offer to businesses.
Look for the individual responsible for business (or small-business) because particular town office and gives to execute a free seminar based upon a topical subject. Typically local governments will almost always be very happy to find approaches to assist businesses inside their area and provide experts to provide on particular subjects frequently, usually monthly.
Obviously at the conclusion of the sessions you will have the possibility to hand out numerous business cards, brochures, and other documentation to solicit business opportunities at the end of your presentation. And this is the main reason why you're doing this.
Internet
Causes of leads over the internet are available in many forms, this may originate from (as previously mentioned) from e-mail newsletters that you have opted in for, listing opportunities with local governments for contract or tender work. Be selective and sign up for relevant newsletters out of your industry where you are kept informed and up-to-date on relevant issues, technology, trends, as well as other key information to maintain you across all there's find out about your changing market.
I sign up for maybe 20 or 30 newsletters weekly, this prevents me informed and up-to-date, when I will be facing my prospects, I speak from the background of data, relevance, and knowledge of my industry and the changes occurring within it which they also should be advised of.