Prospecting – The facts …
Prospecting is not easy, some salespeople like it, some don’t A steady rate of prospects are the lifeblood of your territory, our team and the entire company A prospecting plan helps us build a healthy pipeline, and allows us to consistently meet and exceed quota The best salespeople are the ones who appreciate leads that come from marketing but recognize that nothing is more gratifying than the hard work of generating their own leads The most qualified pipeline is always the one created by the salesperson Managing and measuring the prospecting process is the key to building a rich territory You need support to create prospecting strategies that engage clients We must prioritize prospecting as consistent part of your established daily/weekly routine Successful prospecting is definitely gratifying, can be exciting, can inspire and might even be fun
Prioritize Prospecting – Our Goals
Everyone will have a defined prospecting strategy Everyone will know the tools available to research prospects, companies, brands Everyone will know how to convert research into buyer priorities that we use to engage prospects Everyone will be constantly reminded of the importance of prospecting and pipeline building Everyone will have prospecting and pipeline building top-of-mind Everyone will become an expert in building his/her own pipeline Everyone at Hutzenflutz will know how important prospecting is to us and they will assist us Prospecting will become part of the culture of our team and the rhythm of Hutzenflutz’s business We will not “spam” our customers Our customers will notice that we don’t just “prospect”, we inform, we educate, we engage…they will want to talk to us
Process and Measurement
We’ll establish a prospecting culture and rhythm with a team calendar, marking specific prospecting days
We’ll discuss prospecting at each weekly staff meeting (e.g., best practices, metrics, challenges and solutions) We’ll set prospecting goals for the team overall and for each individual based (examples below) 6 to 10 “touches” (e.g., email, voicemail) over 3-4 weeks Meetings derived from prospecting (in person, on phone) Pipeline growth (qualified opportunities) will be an outcome 4x overall quota 2x 50%+ weighted We’ll build reports and dashboards to track progress and share our performance broadly We’ll celebrate our success, highlight best practices so that the entire team can use them ##TRENDING##
Prospecting Strategy – grounded in what is most important to Buyers
Start with buyer priorities (be concise, personalized and speak to their priorities) Build a list of buyers and their priorities for your market (short, concise list, marketing may help) Tailor every email, voicemail and phone intro to those priorities (not just talking about Hutzenflutz) Research is important to uncovering buyer priorities, especially social media research Many tools are available (e.g., LinkedIn, personal and company/brand Twitter handles are surprisingly informative, other social media, speaking engagements) Look for trends, real life stories, business challenges that highlight buyer priorities Be curious about the company and the person while conducting research, it will increase your knowledge and confidence too Research may vary by buyer/role, we can iterate as we learn Engage in a Prospecting Conversation Create a “conversation” based on the buyer priorities you’ve learned Strive to be educational and provocative (value in every message) All communication should focus on buyer priorities (e.g., email copy) Use a simple signature…eliminate all “extras” (e.g., images, quotes), even your title Personalize where you can and especially for top tier prospects Minimize marketing “template” / mail merge use that looks canned Highlight the business issue in the subject line Open friendly, and establish the “so what”/why the customer should care right away Identify the business priority then map it to a statistic or two that implies a pain or gain End with a simply meeting request, using their name Use the same basic formula for voicemail…20 seconds…don’t sell, focus on one buyer priority and use their name in your meeting request NOTE: Let’s collaborate as a team on the above and develop some email templates that get us started. We’ll iterate and adjust.
Establish exactly who you are going to prospect
Territory account census (agencies, marketers) Individual contacts Identify all tools, all resources available to us Beginning now with your current list, current contacts (warm and cold) Expanding based on territory account census opportunities
