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Sales Courses: 6 Keys to Prospecting Success

I recently conducted a webinar for a client on prospecting. Leading up to the webinar, I asked what questions the client had in regards to prospecting so I could tailor the content to their particular challenges. I guess I shouldn't have been surprised when I only got one response. And that is not because they are masters of prospecting. Quite the contrary. It's because they do so little of it and were unsure of what questions to ask. Like most sales people (50% according to Dave Kurlan's extensive studies), they were doing little prospecting at all.1

While most sales people will tell you that creating conversations is important and must happen if you want to succeed in sales, the dynamics of how it works continues to baffle many. When sales people seek to understand it better they find conflicting advice. Different situations rightly call for different approaches, so some of the experts themselves are confused about what works and what doesn't.

If conflicting advice and lack of understanding is holding you back from prospecting and becoming a great sales person, let me break it down for you to its most simple steps.
First off, let's take a page from direct marketing and its age-old formula referred to as AIDA. AIDA stands for Attention, Interest, Desire, and Action. Think of prospecting as the process of creating attention and interest—enough interest to win a conversation to explore the subject area more deeply.

The goal of prospecting is to create interest and convert that interest into a conversation.

Note that I didn’t say that the goal of prospecting is to find someone currently looking to purchase a particular product or service. For most salespeople, this is not what you want to do, because it doesn’t work often enough.

When prospecting you will find people who are already in the Desire Phase (someone interested in solving a particular problem or purchasing a known type of product or service) or the Action Phase (someone already in the process of searching for a solution to the problem), but if your approach is only to look for these people, then you’re in for a number of rude awakenings:

Find someone who is already looking to buy, and they likely have a front-runner in mind. This front-runner is not you.

If you don’t sell a commodity product or service, it’s likely that the buyer isn’t considering buying what you offer because he/she doesn’t know much (if anything) about it, let alone how it works, and why it’s worthwhile.

Find someone who has the desire to solve a problem and hasn’t yet started looking into how to do it, and you’re in luck! But finding these people will be like finding the proverbial needle in the proverbial haystack.

If you are the one who can capture Attention and stimulate Interest and Desire, you will be the front-runner, you will shape the prospect’s understanding of the importance of solving a particular problem, and you will be in the position to persuade them into Action.

If you really want to be a successful prospector, here are the six keys:

1. Targeting

The foundation that underpins sales prospecting success is the strength of your list and the precision of your targeting. Salespeople often call too low in the organization and try to start a groundswell by working their way up. Reach high to the decision makers. Make sure that your list is clean and ready to go before you start, or you’ll find that your day is lost in fits and starts.

2. Value in Every Touch

When you sell, no one wants to hear your capability pitch, your history, or your life story right off the bat. They’re looking to find out how their lives can be enriched by working with you.

When you think about providing value, don’t just think about the value you will eventually provide when they buy from you. Think about the value they’ll get just from speaking with you. Eventually you’ll sell your company, your offering, and yourself. At first, sell the idea that the prospects’ time will be well-spent if they elect to speak with you.

3. The Right Offer

Your ultimate offer might be a particular type of software, technical instrument, building materials, financial product, operations plan, or marketing tactic. But the interim offers—the offers you make and they accept before they buy from you—must be crafted with the utmost care.

4. No Tricks

Plenty of business success awaits you with your high-integrity approach. There is no need to use tricks, bend the truth, or cut corners to generate an initial conversation. Anything that you wouldn’t feel comfortable telling your children about when you tuck them in bed at night, leave out of your sales prospecting techniques.

5. Multiple Touches

It takes more attempts than most people think to get through to top prospects. It can often take seven, eight, nine, or more touches to get through to someone. That number goes up and down—across different industries and when you reach out to different titles. What’s always true though is that it takes more attempts to get through to your targets than you think.

6. Variety of Touches

Cold calling works well alone, but it works even better with mail (yes, we are talking snail mail here) and e-mail touches. Use a variety of touches to reach out and warm up your prospects - and make sure each touch has value in and of itself (see #2).

Adhere to these 6 keys and you’ll be well on your way to prospecting success. At the very least, you’ll be leaps and bounds ahead of the 50% of sales people who will not prospect at all.

Source: Dave Kurlan link

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