What is sales prospecting?
Sales prospecting aims to find and qualify possible customers (prospects) so that you can set up a meeting to sell a product or service. Getting new prospects is one of the most essential sales growth steps. Without them, you wouldn’t have anyone to sell to. That’s why it’s unsurprising that sales reps spend six hours a week on activities that help them find new customers.
There are many ways to find potential sales leads, such as researching online, making cold calls, going to industry events, and networking. Sales prospecting strategies work best when they let sales teams reach out to many possible customers quickly and effectively.
If salespeople do it right, sales prospecting can help them quickly build a list of approved people who are interested in their company’s goods or services. This can significantly raise the chances of making a sale and meeting goals. Additionally, sales prospecting can help you build stronger relationships with potential customers by giving you a chance to learn about their problems and wants.
Ultimately, sales prospecting is an essential part of the sales process that all sales workers should pay close attention to. When salespeople take the time to find and qualify potential customers properly, they can set themselves up for success and help their companies make more money.
Synonyms
- Identifying Potential Customers: Various tools and strategies are used to identify individuals or organizations likely to buy a product or service.
- Sales Outreach: The combination of cold and warm outreach efforts a sales rep makes to connect with potential customers.
- Sales development is developing relationships with potential customers to close a deal eventually.
- Business Development: The creation of long-term value for an organization by identifying and developing new business opportunities.
Going out to find sales prospects vs. coming in
Coming in and going out are the two main types of sales prospecting. Outbound actions are proactive, meaning sales reps call the customer first. If a prospect contacts a salesperson first, this is called an inbound activity.
Coming in to make a sale
When a possible customer visits the company’s website, reads a white paper, or signs up for a free trial, the company gets an inbound sales lead. Before these leads are sent to sales, marketing often takes extra steps to keep them interested.
Some inbound sales tactics are:
- Doing online research on businesses and people who make decisions
- Making specific material like eBooks, blog posts, and infographics
- Making a website SEO-friendly
- Taking part in online forums and chats
- Running web ads that reach specific people
Most people agree that inbound marketing and sales methods are the best way to find new customers because they let you focus on your business’s ideal customer and send them relevant content. It’s more likely that inbound leads are further along in the buying cycle than outbound leads because they have already shown interest and sometimes even called out to the sales team. In other words, they’re more likely to shut down.
Going out to find sales prospects
Outbound sales prospecting actively uses manual tasks to look for new sales chances. It usually includes things like calling potential customers without knowing them, emailing them, and attending business events.
Some outbound sales tactics are:
- Buying lists of businesses or people in charge to contact
- Researching on the Internet to find possible leads
- Going to trade shows and events in your field
- Calling or emailing possible customers without being asked to do so
Outbound sales methods can work, but they are usually thought to take longer and are less effective than direct methods. This is because many people have to be contacted by hand, and many might not be interested in the product or service the company is selling.
People may also think outbound sales methods are disruptive because they require salespeople to call potential buyers who haven’t said they want to be called. Zippia says the usual success rate for cold calls is only 3%.
Getting leads vs. trying to make sales
Lead generation and sales prospecting are two different sales tasks with different goals, even though they are sometimes used to refer to the same thing.
Find and qualify possible customers (or “prospects”) through market study and outreach. This is called sales prospecting.
On the other hand, lead creation is the process of turning prospects into leads, usually by exchanging contact information (for example, by filling out a website form).
When a possibility turns into a lead, it can be sent to the sales team to further develop and care for. Finding possible buyers is what sales prospecting is all about. Generating leads is what turns those prospects into sales leads.
Even though both activities are essential for making sales, it’s essential to know how they fit into the sales process so that you can do them well.
Techniques for Prospecting Sales
People who work in sales can find new customers in several different ways. You should know how to look for sales for as many deals as possible to be closed as quickly as possible.
Some popular ways to find new customers are listed below:
- Making cold calls
- Reach out via cold email
- Reaching out on social media
- A referral
- Going to events in the industry
- Working together with connections and making partnerships
- Getting lead lists to buy
Making cold calls
Making cold calls is one of the most popular ways to find new customers. When a business makes a cold call, it calls a possible customer who may or may not know about its product or service.
You can do this via phone, email, or even in person. An important reason why cold calls are often seen as annoying is that they require salespeople to call potential buyers who haven’t asked to be called.
Cold calling can be an excellent way to find new customers, but you must research the prospects and have a good script ready before you call.
The main problem with cold calling is that it can be annoying and take time. And because many potential clients don’t answer or automatically block numbers they don’t know, the success rate is usually not very high.
Sending out cold emails
Another popular way to find new customers is to send cold emails. A “cold email” is sent to a possible customer who hasn’t shown any interest in your product or service.
People may find cold emails annoying and bothersome, just like cold calls. It’s also not very likely to work because many people don’t open emails from people they don’t know.
Still, reaching out to people through cold emails can be an excellent way to find new customers. Studying ahead of time is important and writing a personalized, well-thought-out email.
Many of the time, it’s hard to get past spam filters in email inboxes, which makes it hard to reach possible customers. The fact that most people get hundreds of texts daily can also make it hard to stand out.
Reaching out on social media
78% of salespeople who use social media are better at meeting their goals. A popular way for sales reps to find new customers is to use social media to connect with potential customers less pushily.
Social media sites like LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook let sales reps find possible leads and get in touch with them. Sales reps can use tools like LinkedIn Sales Navigator to find leads and contact them through the platform.
Many workers already use LinkedIn daily, which is why it’s the best place to find sales prospects. There are even salespeople who post content on LinkedIn to get new leads.
Reaching out on social media is less annoying than calling or writing people out of the blue, but it can still take a lot of time. On top of that, some prospects might not want to be reached on social media sites.
It’s essential to be both personal and business when you talk to possible customers on social media. Sometimes, all it takes to start a chat is a simple tag or message.
Sending referrals
Referrals come from partners, users, or other people who already know about your business. An excellent way for sales reps to find new customers is to ask for recommendations. This lets them use their network of contacts.
Getting recommendations from people you already work with or have customers is best. You can do this in person, by phone, or by email. It is essential to be clear about what kind of customer you want when you ask for references.
For example, if a salesperson wants to find companies that use a certain software, they would ask their contact for the names of companies that do.
People who are told about a business are more likely to be interested in what it offers because they trust the person who told them about it.
Going to events for the industry
Going to events is a popular way to find new customers in some fields. This is an excellent way for sales reps to meet possible customers because they can talk to them in person.
Sales workers can go to conferences, trade shows, and other events in their field. They might even give talks at these events sometimes. People who work in sales can learn about new goods and trends and connect with other professionals at these events.
Going to these events also makes sales reps look more trustworthy to possible customers. A sales worker can say that they saw the other person at an event in their field when they met them for the first time.
This helps the salesperson connect with the customer and shows that they know a lot about their business.
Getting together with integrations and making partnerships
Companies often partner up or integrate their goods, especially in the business-to-business (B2B) space. When two businesses work together, they can give each other leads and buyers.
Here are some examples of partnerships and integrations:
- Working with a software company that sells a product that works well with yours.
- Making another company’s software work with the company’s software as the front or back end.
- It is working together with another business so that each sends its customers to buy the other’s product.
- It is using its tools to gather information or resources and share them with another business.
Channel sales tactics like white labeling and co-branding are also used by businesses.
When a company sells a product made by another company under its brand name, this is called “white labeling.” When two businesses work together to promote each other’s goods or services, this is called co-branding.
It’s suitable for both companies when they take resources from each other. You can share leads and resources between the businesses. This helps them make more deals and grow.
Getting Lead Lists to Buy
Companies can buy leads and user information lists from sites like ZoomInfo and Hoovers. Most of the time, these leads are sorted by business, location, or company size.
It saves sales reps time to buy a list of leads. They don’t have to look for possible customers on their own; they can just join a platform like ZoomInfo and get the contact information of their prospects.
One bad thing about buying leads is that they aren’t always correct. The leads may not be up-to-date, or the contact information may sometimes be wrong.
Also, these lists might cost a lot of money. Hoovers can charge more than $500 monthly for a list of 500 leads.
It’s up to sales workers to decide if buying a list of leads is the best use of their money and time.
Best Practices for Emails That Try to Close a Sale
When sales reps write emails to make deals, they should keep these tips in mind:
Make the subject line short and precise.
Subject lines that tell people what the email is about and are three to five words long work best for cold outreach efforts. Many people think that putting the prospect’s name in the subject line makes it more likely that the email will be opened, but this isn’t always true. In some cases, it might seem like spam.
If sales reps want to get more emails opened, they should use subject lines that are short, clear, and to the point.
A business that sells CRM software might use the subject line “Free CRM Trial.”
Personalize the word for the person receiving it.
The email’s body should be unique and made just for the person who will be reading it. The best way for sales reps to get calls or demos is to show that they’ve studied or know what’s best for their prospects. Most outreach is impersonal.
The salesperson should say something they learned about the person or the business for a more human touch.
“I just listened to your most recent podcast episode, and I thought what you said about how hard it is to find new sales prospects was right on the mark.”
Don’t write too much in the email.
The email needs to be short and to the point. People are more likely to read and answer short emails or texts.
When writing sales emails, it’s best to keep them between 50 and 125 words long and not use big blocks of text.
Also, reps should write emails in short, simple lines that are easy to understand and don’t use industry jargon.
Add a call to action.
The email should have a clear “call to action” (CTA) that tells the reader what they should do next.
The CTA could say “Schedule a Call,” “Book a Demo,” or “Download Our White Paper.”
A call to action (CTA) tells the recipient exactly what to do next, which makes it more likely that they will reply to the email.
KPIs for sales prospecting
When sales workers are prospecting, they should keep an eye on a number of key performance indicators (KPIs), such as
- Number of Contacts: Salespeople need to keep track of how many people they talk to daily, every week, and every month. You can use this as a starting point to see how well they do over time.
- Number of links: Sales reps should keep track of both the number of contacts they make and the number of links they make. If someone replies to an email or accepts a LinkedIn request, they are a link.
- Number of Appointments: The main goal of prospecting is to set up meetings with possible buyers. Keeping track of how many dates they set up because of their outreach can help them see what effect it is having. They can compare this number to the number of people they know and are connected with to see how well their plan for reaching out is working.
- Number of Sales by Place: Sales reps should also divide their number of sales by place. This will help them figure out where their outreach is most effective and where they should put most of their efforts.
The rate at which a customer stays with a business can help sales teams figure out how good their leads are. A customer who leaves after a few months probably wasn’t properly screened during the sales process.
By monitoring these KPIs, sales reps can see how well they’re prospecting and change their approach as needed.
Tools for Sales Prospecting
Sales intelligence tools are pieces of business software that help sales reps learn more about their clients and find ways to contact them. These tools can also help salespeople make more sales and keep track of their sales flow.
Some of the benefits of sales data tools are:
- The speed with which you can find possible customers’ contact information.
- Learning about a possible customer’s business and what they need.
- A place where they can keep track of their sales flow.
A lot of other tools, like CPQ software, make the sales process easier and give salespeople more time to work on building their sales pipeline.
10 Ways to Make Good Prospecting
Prospecting for sales can be challenging, but there are some best practices that sales reps can use to improve their chances of success.
The most important thing for a business is to know its ideal customer and what kind of goods or services they will be interested in. Once the sales development workers know who the target audience is, they should make a list of prospects based on their contact information, like email addresses or phone numbers. They should collect information about job titles, business size, budget range, and other things to ensure the leads they generate are qualified. This way, the sales team won’t waste time chasing leads that won’t be useful.
If sales reps want to get in touch with potential customers, they should ensure each message is tailored to the person’s needs and hobbies. As an example, you could give them valuable resources like white papers or case studies that are specific to their business and relevant information about the product or service. Also, salespeople should keep a positive mood when talking to prospects, especially if the prospect turns down an offer. This could make the prospect more open to future offers.
Supervisors of salespeople should regularly look at how their team finds new customers to see which methods are working well and which ones might need to be improved. This includes looking at how many emails get answered, how many people visit your website because of ads, how many people buy something after a talk or other event, and so on. Along with these measures, sales operations should consider A/B testing campaigns and polling prospects who didn’t convert initially. This can help the sales team understand how customers act and make their approach plan better.
Lastly, it’s essential to use technology to find new sales prospects. Lead scoring software and other automated tools can keep an eye on customer data points like website visits and email interactions to find possible business opportunities before the customer even contacts you. Social media sites like LinkedIn can also be used for focused outreach because they let sales development reps contact decision-makers at specific companies.
Finally, here are ten tips for good hunting. By following these best practices, sales reps can get more out of their recruiting.
1. Do a lot of research on your prospects before you contact them.
2. When you reach out, make sure your message is clear and to the point.
3. Use digital insights to make your method unique.
4. Use more than one way to communicate.
5. During sales talks, listen more than you talk.
6. Not only close deals, but also build partnerships.
7. Keep track of important data related to prospecting.
8. As much as possible, use recommendations.
9. Maintain order when taking care of lines.
10. Keep up with news and trends in your field
