CHAPTER 5

STRATEGIC PROSPECTING AND

PREPARING FOR SALES DIALOGUE
 LEARNING OUTCOMES

1 Discuss why prospecting is an important and challenging task for

salespeople
2 Explain strategic prospecting and each stage in the strategic
prospecting process
3 Describe the major prospecting methods and give examples of
each method
4 Explain the important components of a strategic prospecting plan
5 Discuss the types of information salespeople need to prepare for
sales dialogue

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 LEARNING OUTCOMES

PROFESSIONAL
SELLING

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 PROSPECTING

• A process designed to identify,

qualify, and prioritize sales
opportunities, whether they
represent potential new
customers or opportunities to
generate additional business
from existing customers
 Prospecting is an important While it’s possible to increase
activity for salespeople because revenue by raising prices, the
it is the primary means of most effective way to increase
generating revenue and revenue and grow market
guarding against the effects of share is to acquire new
customer turnover. customers.

PROSPECTING
FACTS
While it is possible and even
Customer turnover is
desirable to grow business with
inevitable, prospecting allows
existing customers, it is unlikely
salespeople to keep new
that such growth could ever be
customers who replace
great enough to make up for
those that are lost.
business lost to turnover.
 Extremely Those who do not regularly prospect are operating
important under the assumption that current business with
to existing customers will be enough to generate
salespeople desired level of revenue

IMPORTANCE OF
PROSPECTING
Salespeople
lose Causes:
customers • Rise in competition
due to lack • Change in market conditions
of
prospecting • Dissatisfaction with the product, salesperson, or
selling firm
 T H E I M P O RTA N C E A N D
CHALLENGES OF
P RO S P E C T I N G

• Customer-bases are not permanent, salespeople

may lose customers due to:
• Low satisfaction
• Competition
• Economic fluctuation
• Other forms of attrition
• The prospecting process is can be long
• It may take weeks to replace a lost customer
with a new one
• Revenue streams can fluctuate if “pipeline”
isn’t managed
• Prospecting isn’t easy and often includes a lot of
rejection
THE STRATEGIC PROSPECTING PROCESS

Generate sales leads

(qualify sales leads)

Determining Sales Prospects

Prioritizing Sales Prospects

Preparing for Sales

Dialogue

Remaining Stages
in the Trust-
Based Sales
Process
 STRATEGIC PROSPECTING PROCESS

Sales Leads or Suspects

• Generated from Internal or External Sources
• Lead Generation Methods Should be Managed

Qualifying Process
• Need?
• Financial Resources
• Authority to Make Purchase Decision

Prioritize Sales Prospect

• Prioritize Prospect List
• Initiate Pre-Call Planning

Ideal Customer Profile: The characteristics of a firm’s best customers or the perfect customer.
 WHY IS PROSPECTING SO
DIFFICULT?

• Prospecting is difficult for some salespeople because it

is a process filled with rejection.
• This is problematic to some salespeople for some
reasons.
• Many salespeople fear or, at least, don’t like rejection.
• Because it is filled with rejection, many salespeople
may feel that prospecting is an inefficient use of their
time.
• In either (or both) case(s), salespeople will find
prospecting difficult because they will not allocate
resources necessary for making this process more
effective.
EFFECTIVE PROSPECTING
 GENERATING SALES LEADS

• The first step in the strategic prospecting process

• Identify sales leads or suspects
• Organizations of individuals who might possible purchase the product or
service
• Lead generation is the initiation of consumer interest or enquiry
into products or services of a business.
• Leads can be created for purposes such as list building, e-newsletter
list acquisition or for sales leads.
• LinkedIn

PROSPECTING METHODS
 Exhibit

LINKEDIN FOR
PROSPECTING

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 5 EFFECTIVE
WAYS TO USE
LINKEDIN FOR
SALES
PROSPECTING
 1. JOIN RELEVANT
GROUPS

• LinkedIn Groups are a great opportunity to target people

with certain interests and skills.
• After the group admin approves your join request, you can
contribute to existing discussions, as well as start your
own.
• Look for groups filled with professionals that match your
ideal customer profile.
• For example, if you sell email marketing software, your
prospecting targets probably include email marketing
professionals. In this case, you’d want to join groups
related to email marketing:
• Linkedin groups examples
• Once you’ve joined, comment on posts and answer
questions to build your voice and authority among
potential customers.
• Remember to offer value before talking about your
product or service.
 2. USE SEARCH
FILTERS

• Most reps don’t realize how advanced LinkedIn’s search function really is.
• Behind the small white field at the top of your profile is an intuitive search engine that
lets you narrow down your search using specific filters.
• For example, if you’re searching for “Payroll Manager,” you would type that in the
search function and then choose “People.” You could then target prospects further
and filter by:
• Connections (1st, 2nd, 3rd)
• Connections of
• Locations
• Current companies
• Past companies
• Industries
• Profile language
• Nonprofit interests
• Schools
• So if you want to target payroll managers at a sporting goods company such as Nike,
you can just use the “current companies” filter and choose Nike as the company:
GET COMPANY
SPECIFIC - NIKE
MORE FILTERS – UNDER ALL PEOPLE
 3. SCROLL
THROUGH
“PEOPLE ALSO
VIEWED.”

• “People Also Viewed” is a column in

the right sidebar of a public profile.
• It tells you who else is looking at
besides the profile you’re viewing—
and it’s probably individuals who have
similar traits to your contact.
• This feature can offer valuable insight
into a prospect’s network and lead
you to key decision makers.
• For example, take a look at the
“People Also Viewed” column from
car fleet company Avrios’ Founder &
CEO, Andreas Brenner’s LinkedIn
profile:
 4. TWEAK YOUR
PROFILE FOR SALES

• With a few quick changes, you can turn your LinkedIn

profile into a prospecting machine.
• Because the folks you’ve engaged with through groups and
direct outreach will most likely visit your profile to learn
more about you, it only makes sense to optimize your
profile to impress prospects.
• Make sure your headline conveys what you offer and who
you help. For example, if you sell enterprise accounting
software, a good headline might be:
• “I help B2B companies minimize costs through accounting
solutions.”
• A well-crafted headline gives off the impression that you’ve
taken time to make the rest of your profile appealing, too.
 5. SEND INMAIL MESSAGES.

• InMail is LinkedIn’s internal email system.

• It gives sales reps the ability to send direct messages to any
LinkedIn user without requiring an introduction.
• As you can probably imagine, it’s a goldmine for sales
prospecting.
• The only requirement is that you need to have a Premium
LinkedIn account to access InMail.
• Depending on your level of subscription, you only have a
limited number of InMail credits per month, so use these
messages sparingly and strategically.
• Want to impress the brand manager of Walmart? Whether
you’re a dedicated consultant, the VP of Sales, or a company
representative, make your InMail customized and compelling.
Here’s an example for inspiration:
 COLD C ANVASSING

• When a salesperson contact a sales lead unannounced with

little if any information about the lead
Cold calling is the most extreme – salesperson merely “knocks on
doors” or make telephone calls to organizations or individuals.
• A lot of rejection in cold calling
• Referral – a sales lead a customer or some other infjuential
person provides
• Always get permission to use the person’s name when
contacting a prospect
NETWORKING
 Second, salespeople can
First, social networking use social networking to
ELECTRONIC Salespeople can use
electronic or social
sites (e.g., LinkedIn and
Plaxo) can help
learn about the prospect
and the prospect’s

NETWORKING networking to enhance

prospecting in a variety
salespeople identify
prospects, either
organization, either from
the prospect’s social
networking page or from
of ways. directly or through other members of the
referrals. social network who are
familiar with the prospect.
 COMPANY
SOURCES

• Company Records
• Advertising
Inquiries
• Telephone Inquiries
• Trade Shows
• Seminars
 PUBLISHED SOURCES

• Directories NAICS
Code
– Hoovers
– Harris Directory
– Moody’s industrial
Directory
• Commercial Lead
Lists
– Sales Genie
– infoUSA
– Others
• Other Web Sources (including use of NAICS)
– (pronounced "nakes") stands for North American
Industry Classification System
 • Survey asked dozens of sales and marketing experts to find out which lead generation methods yielded the best results for themselves
or their clients. Following are their top nine suggestions on where and how to find new customers.
1. Customer referrals. Dogs may be man's best friend. And diamonds may be a girl's best friend. But customer referrals are an organization's best friend.

2. SEO, SEM and PPC. "The best way (in terms of lowest cost per acquisition) for an IT company or a service-based B2B company to generate leads is through pay per
click (PPC) and search engine optimization (SEO)," says Gabriel Shaoolian, the CEO and founder of digital agency Blue Fountain Media.

3. Cross-promotions and co-marketing. Consider forming "alliances with complementary, noncompetitive vendors to exchange leads, promote each others' products
and services, or any number of other mutually beneficial activities," suggests Rodrigues.

4. Providing useful content. "According to Google, tech buyers consume an average of 14 pieces of online content before making a buying decision (as opposed to just
eight to 10 for the typical buyer)," says Kathleen Booth, owner and CEO, Quintain Marketing, which provides small to midsized businesses with end-to-end marketing
solutions. "Companies that produce educational or informative content can establish thought leadership and generate leads earlier in the buying process, setting the stage to
ultimately win the business," she notes. "It may sound counterintuitive," she continues, "but the key is to avoid selling. By offering prospects helpful information in the form of
blogs, whitepapers, ebooks, webinars, case studies or demos, you can win their trust and their business."

5. Speaking at trade shows, conferences and industry events. "The best lead generator is to give an event presentation and follow it with customized letters, calls or
emails to individuals that you met [there]," argues Susan Carol, CEO, Susan Carol Associates Public Relations.

6. Using LinkedIn. "Our customer research showed that traffic from LinkedIn generated the highest visitor to lead conversion rate (2.74 percent), almost three times
higher than Twitter (.69 percent) and Facebook (.77 percent)," says Mike Volpe, CMO of HubSpot, a provider of inbound marketing software.

7. Using Twitter. Use Twitter "to promote sales, products or services... and utilize hashtags so that potential clients can find your sale or topic," suggests Kimberly Judd-
Pennie, the founder and CEO of CyberMark International, an integrated marketing firm.

8. Providing contact information on every website page. "With search engines being such an important driver of inbound website traffic, you can't always predict
where people are going to enter your website," notes Jonathan Bentz, marketing manager, Netrepid, a provider of professional services. "Having your contact info on every
page of your website increases the likelihood that people will contact you."

9. Live chat. "We added a live chat box to our website and generated a request for quote the very first night!" says Bentz. "I can't stress how important that was for a proof
of concept, especially since most IT pros are looking for fast answers without possibly getting stuck on the phone with a pushy salesperson."
 The most productive salespeople follow a strategic
prospecting process/plan
Prioritizing prospects so
Qualifying leads to
Generating leads best sales opportunities
identify true prospects
can be pursued

DEVELOPING A Plans help salespeople continuously improve their

STRATEGIC prospecting effectiveness
PROSPECTING PLAN

Should fit the individual needs of salesperson

 DETERMINING SALES
PROSPECTS

• Hardest part is to evaluate leads to determine

which ones are true prospects for their product or
service
• Evaluation process = Qualifying sales leads
• The salesperson’s act of searching out, collecting,
analyzing information to determine the likelihood
of the lead being a good candidate for making a
sale

• Qualified sales prospects are leads who:

• Have a need for the product or service
• Have the budget or financial resources to
purchase the product or service
• Have the authority to make the purchase
decision
 PRIORITIZE SALES PROSPECTS

• Even though qualifying process culled out the least promising

leads, the remaining prospects do not all represent the same
sales opportunity
• Salespeople prioritize the make sure they spend most
of their time on the best opportunities
• Create an ideal customer profile
• The characteristics of a firm’s best customers or the perfect
customer
• A second approach is to identify one or more criteria, evaluate
sales prospects against these criteria, and either rank all of the
sales prospects based on this evaluation or place the sales
prospects into A, B, and C categories, with A sales prospects
representing the best sales opportunities.
 PREPARING A SALES
DIALOG

• The final step in the strategic prospecting

process
• Prepare for the initial contact with a sales
prospect by planning a sales dialogue
• What are you going to say?
• Usually need additional information to
increase chances of success in the initial
sales dialogue
• Read from classroom to Field in the
textbook
 Figure

DEVELOPING A STRATEGIC
PROSPECTING PLAN
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PERSONAL PROSPECTING LOG
INFORMATION GATHERED TO PREPARE
A SALES DIALOGUE

Basic Information about the prospect

Information about the selling situation

Sources of information
 GATHERING PREC ALL
INFORMATION:
AT A M I N I M U M …

• About the Buyer

• Name, title and contact information
• Education & work background
• Community & organization involvement
• Hobbies & interests
• Communication style
BASIC INFORMATION ABOUT
THE PROSPECT
 Exhibit

I N F O R M AT I O N
ABOUT THE
SELLING
S I T UAT I O N

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 Exhibit

SOURCES OF
INFORMATION

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 Exhibit

https://www.ted.com/talks/jia_jiang_what_i_learned_from_100
_days_of_rejection?language=en

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 • Each group has been hired as a consultant by a new
company to develop a strategic prospecting strategy.
• The company brews and bottles a specialty tea beverage.
The tea is rich in vitamins, anti-aging nutrients, and natural
anti-carcinogens. The tea is expensive to brew and has a
suggested retail price of $5.00 per 16 oz. bottle. The
company is located in San Francisco. It can produce 5,000
bottles per day and does not sell the tea directly to
consumers.

GROUP The strategic prospecting strategy should include:

ACTIVITY • How leads will be generated
• How leads will be qualified
• How sales prospects will be prioritized
• How information to prepare for sales dialogue will be
obtained
• How the strategic prospecting strategy will be tracked and
evaluated
 KEY TERMS

• Strategic prospecting • Referral

• Sales funnel or • Introduction
pipeline • Centers of influence
• Sales leads or • Noncompeting
suspects salespeople
• Qualifying sales leads • Electronic
• Sales prospect networking
• Ideal customer profile • Company records
• Cold calling • Advertising inquiries

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 KEY TERMS

• Inbound
telemarketing
• Outbound
telemarketing
• Trade shows
• Seminars
• Directories
• Strategic prospecting
plan
• Tracking system
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