What Are You Really Looking For?

One of the first things you’ll need to do in order to set up an effective prospecting system is clearly identify your goals. When you look for new prospects, exactly who do you want to find? It’s not enough just to find new prospects; they have to be the right kind of prospect. For instance, does the prospect need to be Sales Ready? Efficient prospecting means that based on your criteria, you can:

• find all the qualified prospects in your territory

• prioritize them, based on any criteria you want to select

• introduce your company and your services

• make a great first impression

If you don’t have clearly defined goals when you begin your prospecting activities you’re likely to attract the wrong types of prospects and never develop the contacts that would have been truly valuable. If it isn’t going to expand your business in a high quality manner, if it isn’t going to maximize your income, it simply isn’t worth your time and effort. As Steven Covey would say: begin with the end in mind. (The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. Steven R. Covey Free Press; 15th Anniversary edition (November 9, 2004) pg. 95)

As I’ve indicated before, one of the best places to start any prospecting effort is from wherever you are right now. It’s that first step beyond the status quo that will determine where you will find yourself 90 days or 90 months from now.

Begin by making sure you deliver the right marketing message. What is your brand? Why should customers do business with you rather than your competition? Make sure you, and everyone else in your company, understand the answers to the “W” and “H” questions your English teacher was so fond of. Can you accurately identify: who you want to attract, what you expect them to buy, why you are the most qualified business to provide this service, the when and where goals of timing, and lastly, how you will present this information to a Highly Qualified Prospect. Remember, part of what creates a Highly Qualified Prospect is the understanding that the client and the business are well-suited to each other and ready to work productively together.

Next, look at your existing clients once again. We have discussed the prospecting efforts you can consider within your known pool of clients that will help generate additional sales revenues and strengthen those relationships. Let’s investigate this even further. What have you learned about your clients? What kind of information do you keep on file about them? If you haven’t done so already, take the time to at least create a complete spreadsheet of your current customer information. You are looking for trends and patterns, both good and bad.

Here are some of the things to consider:

Industry

Number of employees

Type of business

Geographic scope of business

Revenue levels

Growth trends

Purchase patterns

Previous sales encounters

Don’t forget to include “Business Friendly” traits such as:

Easy to work with

Pays on time

Amount of credit approved for

Understand and values your services

These may not seem quite so pertinent at the moment, but they make a big difference down the road by creating a productive and satisfying work atmosphere. During this exercise you are likely to discover (or automatically thought of) that one certain customer who, no matter how much you nurture the relationship, makes everyone they deal with in your company miserable. Retaining or attracting clients who do not value you rarely leads to a satisfying end; monetarily or personally. If you can identify the factors surrounding these unfortunate business relationships they are easier to avoid when you are seriously looking for prospects who are true Wanters.

Now, set your parameters. If you could wave a magic wand and produce the ideal client for your business, what would they be like? Take what you know about your business, your goals, and your current client base. Then, don’t be afraid to make concrete statements. You want to clearly understand both angles. Identify what both the client and business will bring to the table. What should ultimately result from your relationship?

Of course, ideal customers do not magically appear. But, when you have defined your parameters, and gauged your prospecting accordingly, you’re on the right track. If you can define the demographics and traits of your “best clients” you can use that information as the criteria for putting your prospect list together. The results of your prospecting efforts are going to be much closer to Prince Charming relationships rather than blind dates worthy of the horror hall of fame.

Understanding Your Sales Pipeline

Do you remember that old television commercial—the one that said, “And then she’ll tell three people, and they’ll all tell three people,” on and on? Wouldn’t it be nice if actual sales really worked like that? The fact is the commercial never says all those people who got told would actually turn around and buy the product.

That’s the problem really: there’s a vast amount of difference between the hundreds of people who need to find out about your business before a few of those people will actually buy. Think about the number of people you had to tell about your business just to get it up and running. Now that you’re established, your focus has changed to both maintaining and increasing the sales levels you currently enjoy. Although your company was probably originally built up by your prospecting efforts, as a businesses matures the level of prospecting seems to fall by wayside. In today’s changing economy, you need to find the most efficient ways to keep qualified prospects entering your pipeline, nurture those already in process, and provide your salespeople with the candidates who are most willing to buy at the end of the pipeline.

A sales pipeline is a funneling process for sifting through every potential customer in order to find those who will actually buy. As you do this you will typically hear four responses:

“Not interested.”

“I’ll buy – but I’m waiting for budget approval.”

“As soon as the new warehouse is done, I’ll order.”

“I’m ready to buy right now.”

Of course, what we all want to hear is “I’m ready to buy right now.” This is where the first money is made for your business and your salespeople. But, with the funneling perspective of a sales pipeline you will understand that even when your pipeline is filled with highly qualified prospects only 25% of those potential deals will actually follow through to close. What happens to the other 75%? That’s the big question your sales pipeline needs to address.

The important thing to remember about sales pipelines is the “X” percentage factor I talked about in an earlier blog. Even if they didn’t buy from you this year, they might be in line for next year, or the next.

You want to fill your pipeline with the most qualified prospects available so that the highest majority of sales possible can come out the other side. But, you also don’t want to forget about the people still stuck at the beginning and middle of your pipeline. If you nurture those relationships, outside of the pressure of closing, then the majority of them will transition from point to point in your pipeline rather than going somewhere else when their “X” percentage factor for buying comes into effect.

Today’s compensation packages encourage salespeople to put most of their efforts into the end of the sales pipeline. It takes a little retraining to help everyone understand how best to nurture those “not yet” relationships.

Ekstrom & Associates specializes in helping you understand how to fill your pipeline with the most highly qualified prospects and creating nurturing relationship with the prospects already in your sales pipeline. When a prospect is ready to make his purchase, he is released to the salespeople. Until then, the prospect is nurtured without closing pressure.

About Ekstrom & Associates

Welcome!

Our wish for your business is the same as yours. We want your business to prosper, to become increasingly more profitable, and to be the dominate business of its type in your sales territory.

Ekstrom & Associates provides professional, business-to-business prospecting. We are the prospecting people and prospecting always works! We are expert at assembling focused prospecting lists. We know…

• How to contact
• How to get past the attack receptionist to the right decision maker
• How to make a great first impression
• How to get answers to the questions you want asked

With our service, you will know which prospects are active in the market, what their purchase plans are and what their timing is. We have been helping businesses grow their profits for almost 20 years and we know how and what to do to help you realize your growth objectives. If you really want to grow your business, why not talk with us about it.

To have that discussion all you need to do is click here right now and complete the form you will find there.