Sales Prospecting Tips

What first comes to your mind when you think of sales prospecting?

Perhaps, you get these thoughts.

How do I get the contact details of prospective customers?
Where can I find them?
How do I start conversations with them?

Experience is the best teacher

If you are a seasoned sales professional and have been hitting sales quotas, your real-world experience is your best teacher. When you take a backward journey into the deals you closed, you get real stories from experience. Think of how you got the contact details, where you found each prospect, what conversations built rapports and what led to closures. Replicate the same with potential customers.

Read experiences of salespeople who meet sales quota

Thanks to the internet. It has a lot of useful content. Set aside time to find real stories of salespeople who meet their quotas. Here’s one such experience of a salesperson using social media to hit his quota. Here’s a word of caution though. Ensure they are stories of real people and not those fake profiles that have flooded the internet. Apply the learning in your sales.

Invest in yourself

By continually sharpening your skills, you are investing yourself. Whether you are new to sales or experienced, a good sales training program can help you up your sales skills. Some of these programs are designed to improve specific sales skills. By enrolling in a program that teaches sales prospecting, you become better at it.

Find some shortcuts

Did you know you can procure a contact database of your target audience? Many salespeople are unaware that such a paid service is available. Describe your target audience profile to the service providers. They will find contact details and other details about your target customers. Use these for intelligent sales prospecting. Your investment in a quality prospect database pays for itself in increased sales.

Start intelligent conversations

Customize your conversation based on the source of the lead. That needs careful forethought and preparation. For instance, you might first obtain a list of your target audience. Then check their LinkedIn profiles, invite them to accept the friend request, start sharing some useful content, comment on their posts, observe them intently, understand their interests, start conversations based on their interests and slowly show them how your product or service helps them. As a salesperson, you use various channels to reach out.  Why not plan to study how to start sales conversations by each channel? Why not try a sales training that covers the aspect of starting conversations by channel?

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