Prospecting. The basics

I work in sales for about fifteen years now and almost every business that I get to meet has the same problem. A sales problem! Some business owners and salespeople have a limiting belief that sales and revenue are just going to fall from the trees, as we say in Greece. So they are not doing even the basics of prospecting. What are those? Let’s have a look.

Targeting.
The easiest way to have more clients is to know who are the people that need your product or service the most. You must make the proper research, set the criteria by which you will establish your ideal client and start finding them. Instead of losing time with people that clearly do not need you, or waiting for the customer to walk in your shop.

Phone calls.
Sounds simple enough but most of the business owners and salespeople do not know how to use the phone properly. The worst sign for spotting this is when you listen to someone trying to sell a product or a service by the phone. With the exception of telemarketing (where you sell exclusively from the phone), you must use the phone for its biggest strength, to close appointments. You must not try to sell from the phone but to ‘sell’ the appointment.

Needles contacts with prospects.
One major problem is also the inability of salespeople and business owners to understand whether the person sitting in front of them has the ability and need to buy, You must learn to ask the proper questions to the prospect so that you will not waste their time and yours.

Follow up.
It is a fact that most salespeople do not follow up enough with qualified prospect. Being rejected must not be taken personally but as a step of the process. One process that the latest research shows that it takes about 10 to 12 appointments for the prospect to close. So you must provide value in every encounter and do not give up at the first sign of trouble.

Contact variety.
These days you have so much tools available to you that a great deal of people suffer from analysis paralysis and do not use them almost at all. Phone, email, personal visits, skype, social media, letters, and more are just a few. Just be creative and learn to use all of them in the right way. Checklists help a lot.

Personally I believe that it all comes down to activity. If you do not do enough targeted activity every day, you will not see results. But lately with all the new selling-through-the-internet movements people have found a great shadow to hide behind and not expose themselves to face to face time with enough people. Especially business owners that think retail is all about waiting for the customer, when in reality they have to proactively look for the right people to sell to…

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