When I first started out with Lead Prospecting I had a few note-books, business cards, telephone numbers, a phonebook, phone, email, a CRM and a access to the internet. Some prospecting calls were fruitful and others well, practice makes perfect !
Everything is in the:
• Follow up
• Your promise
• The time you take to research the company you are Prospecting to
In Business and Marketing, Lead Generation is the initiation of sales or consumer interest or making enquiries into products or services of a business. Leads can be created for purposes such as sales pipelines, email list building, webinar registration, database building, newsletter list acquisition or for sales leads.
Prospecting is the process of searching for potential customers, sales, leads, clients, or buyers in order to develop new business development opportunities. The end goal is to move prospects through the stages of your sales funnel until they eventually convert into revenue-generating customers.
What I learned along the way is that preparation is everything.
By creating a system you allow yourself to follow and track and create a system, which allows you to;
• Perform Lead Generation activities
• Increase Sales with a call Framework
• Increase your Sales Pipelines
• Outsource Lead Generation/Sales Calls/Closing to a team
- Prepare for Sales calls and convert calls into sales
I created the following Sales Prospecting call framework, detailed in the infographic below.
I use this framework alongside the Sales Funnel Clinic lead prospecting call planner here http://bit.ly/leadgenerationsalesprospectingplanner.
The first 3 steps you can follow to build your system are as follows;
- Conduct research on the company, brand or Individual
- Devise your Prospecting offer or arrange a demo, free trial, A free class or value test drive
- Map your strategy plan
RESEARCH ON COMPANY, BRAND OR INDIVIDUAL
When you are prospecting to a company by telephone or email you want to make sure that you are fully prepared and have taken the time out to contact desk research.
Things that you can including your research include covering outlining their competitors and reviewing any press coverage.
Conducting Gap Analysis for potential opportunities which you can help the company to develop.
As well as some key due diligence pieces such as date of corporation, key contacts and a swot analysis for quality assurance and to assssa whether the company truly has development and growth opportunity.
DEVISE YOUR PROSPECTING OFFER OR ARRANGE A DEMO, FREE TRIAL, FREE CLASS OR VALUE TEST DRIVE
When it comes to devising your prospecting offer you do not want to be thinking on your feet, although you may need to be agile and adapt based on the contacts response to your call.
With this in mind we want to map out the steps or offers that you are hoping to propose to the prospective company.
As well as keeping a record it is also a good idea to follow up from the phone call with an email address in the key points discussed during the call.
MAP YOUR STRATEGY PLAN
You then want to map out your strategy plan an example of this could look like “ Offer a free trial, then upsell one year license reference KY12”.
You may also want to update your CRM with the necessary details, so that this can help to on-board the client and improve your customer experience.
