Problem Prospecting?!: Completely Eradicate Your Prospecting Troubles By Leading With Problems

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You also found that classroom scheduling conflicts — stemming from the institution's existing curriculum scheduling system — are making required courses for popular majors fall by the wayside every semester. Customer profile: How well does the sales prospect match your ideal customer profile? How big is the company? What industry are they in? Does their ideal use case fit how your product should be used? Which tools have they tried in the past? If your prospect’s answers don’t match that of an ideal customer, it may be worth recommending an alternative solution. According to HubSpot's recent survey of over 1,000 sales professionals, 66% of salespeople say referrals from existing customers offer the best leads — and high-quality leads often become productive prospects. Though they might seem similar — for one, they both exist around the top of the sales funnel — but there are some important distinctions between the two. Let's take a look at how they differ. Lead vs. Prospect

This is the holy sales grail, and top challenge. Although everyone’s connected 24/7, modern prospects suffer from information overload and are being prospected constantly, so they’re savvier and less responsive than ever.Build your communication skills: Successful networking—whether online or offline—requires you to be a fantastic communicator and a good relationship-builder. Working on these sales skills is essential. Research both the individuals and the companies you’re selling to: LinkedIn is a wealth of information. Connect with potential customers and learn what they care about from their posts. Then, you’ll have a much better starting point when you reach out. Reach out proactively to your most successful customers: Don’t wait for referrals to come to you—one of the best ways to get high-quality referrals is to make a list of the customers seeing the most ROI from your product, and asking them directly for referrals.

Account executives: AEs act as the “closers” who actually connect with prospects, make sales presentations, and conduct demos. These reps guide prospects through the final stages of the sales process, answering their questions and concerns and (hopefully) converting them into customers. A discovery call is a unique opportunity for you to simultaneously understand and impress your prospect. Asking the right questions on your call can help you tease out the information needed to understand whether your offering suits their business — giving you a solid basis for an effective value proposition. As you move through the process, you can typically engage with prospects one of two ways: either through outbound or inbound prospecting. Outbound vs Inbound Prospecting Let’s start with research. Here’s a neat bit of info: 82 percent of sales reps who exceeded quota said they always do research before reaching out to prospects. And 62 percent of that group said they have ramped up their research significantly. What does that tell us? Research matters. (At least if you want to hit your quota!) This is definitely a less traditional way to prospect, but it can be very effective. If you have the budget to run ads, use them to develop interest in your product or service, and even see whether new leads are good potential customers.

Clear call-to-action: Suggest a concrete time to connect or ask a close-ended question to make it clear that the ball is in their court. Try using one of these lines: "Do you have ten minutes to catch up tomorrow?" or "Are you available for a 30-minute call on Tuesday between 9 and 11 AM?" Talking to these people directly gives you insights you’ll never find just by doing research online. By asking the right discovery questions, you’ll learn: Social selling is an effective strategy for sales prospecting due to several reasons. Firstly, it allows you to directly engage with potential customers right where they are always active – on social media platforms, to build relationships and establish trust. It enables personalized and targeted interactions, showcasing industry expertise and valuable insights. Social selling involves using social media networks to connect with potential customers while they’re still in the early stages of the buying process. Qualifying your new leads is done in two stages—first, by researching everything you can about the company online, and second, by speaking directly with them.

Be human. Empathy, genuine interest, and casual tone will add a human touch to your outreach and help you build stronger relationships with prospects. In most SaaS sales teams, prospecting is carried out by Sales Development Reps (SDRs), sometimes called Business Development Reps (BDRs). Won/lost: The sales rep has officially closed the deal…or not. Reps who successfully win a sale should keep in touch with the customer and develop a long-term relationship that could lead to upsells or referrals later on. Reps who lose a deal should evaluate what went wrong and work on their lead nurturing tactics. You need to make sure that you have enough sales and marketing material on and off the web in place to do a lot of heavy lifting for you. Before talking to you, a prospect will explore your brand visibility, content, case studies, and more to judge your brand reputation. If the materials available leave them noncommittal or closed off, that becomes a massive hurdle for your sales team. Solution: Create and Share Quality Content

Effective Prospecting Methods for B2B and B2C Companies in 2023

Taking those kinds of strides will give you a more productive understanding of who you should be connecting with and what you can say to resonate with them. 11. Ask for referrals. Sales triggers (such as new funding or sector announcements) to ensure you're reaching out at the right time

Develop a list of common objections that may surface at different stages. For example, objections to buying a SaaS product vs building in-house are likely to come early on; budget objections, later. Keep up with market changes, industry news, and how the competition is evolving to be prepared. Creating a connection: Now, you have to make the connection. In your opening, they learn why we’re reaching out to them, but now they need to know why they should care about what you do. Sales prospecting tools are software or platforms designed to help you find, identify, and qualify potential customers. These tools provide various features and functionalities to streamline and enhance prospecting. Here are some common types of sales prospecting tools:

How to Prospect

Create curiosity: Ask questions about their business. Ask more than tell. This conversation is about them and understanding their needs and problems. The less you talk about your business and product, the more your prospect will be interested to hear the final pitch. With the right skills and direct phone numbers, an SDR can start a conversation with a prospect, link their product to the prospect’s pain point, and book meetings. Our customers use Cognism's verified mobile number data to increase connect rate and enrich missing data points from inbound leads.