The Objective of Prospect Relationships

Why do you really want additional customers? No, really—I’m serious. What is it that drives you to seek out new prospects and new business opportunities? When was the last time you really thought about your reasons for being in sales?

There are all kinds of reasons, and yes, money is one of them. That can’t be overlooked. But, I’m betting there are other reasons outside of that paycheck which keep you coming back to work and back to nurture your business every day. There are things in this life that are worthwhile to be passionate about and one of those things, I hope, is your business.

Now, turn the tables. What is it that drives a customer to buy your product or service? Why would they choose your company over the next guy’s? Is it about passion for them as well? Probably, just not about the exact same things you are passionate about. The trick is finding out how the two of you fit together. Like any good relationship, a customer relationship can and should be about more than money. It’s about finding a good fit and a synergistic relationship. It’s about respect and value that goes beyond dollar signs.

I talked a little bit about this when I encouraged you to define your ideal client. To be successful, you need a very good understanding of your own drives and motivations and an even better understanding of your prospective client’s drives and motives.

First, let’s realize a general assumption. There are two kinds of prospects: new and seasoned. What do I mean by that? Basically, you will encounter two different types of consumer. The first – new – is a new player. They are new to the need for your type of service. They are start up companies or those who are learning a new way of doing things. (Think Grandma shopping for her first cell phone.) The second – seasoned – have been in the game for a while. They know what their needs are, they know how and what they want to buy, and they’ve done it all before. (Think about the teenage grandson Grandma brought shopping with her who is one his fifth cell phone.)

New and seasoned prospects have to be approached differently but your end goals are the same. You both want a positive outcome to your buying and selling relationship.

I’ll focus for just a minute on the seasoned prospect. Why? It’s a matter of logistics. They’re the ones you’ll encounter most often and the biggest question you’ll have is: are they buying from me or my competition?

Having completed millions of prospecting activities, we have learned a thing or two from the tens of thousands of sales opportunities we’ve generated at Ekstrom and Associates. Among these things is the fact there is relatively little complete brand loyalty. There can be substantial loyalty to a provider or vendor, but there typically isn’t blind loyalty to the brand as a whole. This is what you need to focus on. A prospect’s loyalty is generally focused on the company, not the brand of the product. Even if it’s there, loyalty to a brand will not stop you from taking business away from the competition.

Prospecting always works, and if you want to go after your competitors’ best clients there isn’t a better tool. What percentage of your existing clients left you and your company in the past five years? It’s likely that your competition suffered the same loss. Your ability to prospect, among other things, allows you the opportunity to learn firsthand, from your competition’s clients themselves, how dissatisfied they are with your competition. Use that knowledge to draw them away from your competition to you.

In order to take opportunities away from the competition you must be willing to step up to the plate where these seasoned buyers are telling you they have dissatisfactions. You need to know your ideal customer: their drives and passions and be willing to foster a relationship based on their needs. You look for additional services to provide that show your company is passionate about they’re needs.

First, you look for and fill an immediate need, then you work to keep these people by building a fortress around your relationship. These efforts: taking the most attractive clients away from your competition, and guiding you in building a fortress around them are what Ekstrom and Associates specializes in.

It can be that simple. Build a stout fortress around your most valuable clients and tear down the fortresses your competitor’s have built. It doesn’t make economic sense to take 10 great clients from your competition and lose 10 great clients in the process. Let them know how much you value their business. If you don’t show them they are a valued customer, they will find a company who will.

More Things to Consider Before You Pick Up the Phone

How the script is delivered (acted out) is just as important as what is said in the script. Your voice and mannerisms need to be just as personable as your words. What can you do to improve your calls outside of the script? Here are a few things to consider.

Ideally, the goal of your script should be to have a conversation. Not a long conversation, but a conversation nonetheless. In the past 20 years we have written hundreds of scripts and delivered them millions of times. Regardless of the script’s subject the most successful scripts are always conversational.

Maximize productivity during your calling time. When you are working efficiently you should be making approximately 30 phone calls per hour. Remember, an average prospecting call should only be a few minutes long, unless the customer initiates a longer conversation.

Here’s another hint. We recommend that you only let the phone ring four times instead of the standard six. That sounds like a strange rule doesn’t it? The reason we make this recommendation is that in most telephone systems, four rings takes a total of 24 seconds. Six takes 36 seconds. The difference between 24 and 36 seconds is just 12 seconds, right? What’s the big deal with 12 seconds? A lot!

On a 30 call per hour project (and most of our projects run 30 to 35 calls per hour) that wastes 12 seconds per call (12 seconds times 30 calls per hour equals 360 seconds). The numbers add up quickly. If you take 360 seconds divided by 60 (the number of seconds in a minute), it equals six minutes. Six minutes is equal to 10% of an hour. How would you like to lose 10% of your productivity, right off the top, because you allowed the phone, if not answered, 12 extra seconds on a call?

Adjusting the amount of times you let the phone ring is one of the most basic things you can do to make your prospecting time more efficient. It can’t get simpler than that.

Remember to utilize some type of a Marketing & Sales Database, to keep your call time and prospecting experiences organized.

Be consistent and diligent. Keep track of what you say when you leave messages for Decision Makers (DM) and call back when you say you will. Don't expect that interested or not, they will return your call.

Have you scheduled prospecting into your day just as you would block out time for a sales meeting? If you do not make time for new prospects you can not expect them to seek you out.

Another thing to consider is the “voice” of the one making the prospecting call. Do all you can to make this voice friendly, polite, and specific to the geographic area you are approaching. I realize you can’t change your voice dramatically, but you can improve diction and vocal mannerisms.

Attitude also makes a big difference- do you expect the DM to take and enjoy your call, or do you see yourself as an inconvenience and interruption to their day? If that is how you feel about your phone call, how can you expect the other person to feel any differently?

What you take into the experience often determines what you can take away from it as well. Sometimes the old adage “Smile before you dial” is overused, but that doesn’t make it less true. When you are happy and excited, the listening ear on the other end of the line can detect that. Don’t be false, but determine your own motives for making a prospecting call, remember the overall goal of getting to know the prospect and enjoy the conversation.

Remember prospecting is not sales: when you talk to a prospect you are looking to see if they have a need you can fill, not telling them what you think they need and how much it will cost them. Get to know them, ask for information about their needs and concerns before you ask for more of their time or money. Most people have their own opinions and feelings so it should not be surprising that they are willing them, even with people they don’t know.

Maintain a policy of honesty and respect. Do not fabricate connections with a prospect or information about your product or service. When you don’t know an answer, admit it, but promise to find out and get back to them.

Be personable. Make a connection to the prospect as a person rather than a number off your list of people to contact. Just as you would want to be treated with high regard, they want that too. Offer, and expect, respect and common courtesy.

Are you taking advantage of opportunities to gather "I know a guy" referrals? Even if a prospect is not a good fit for your company, they may know someone who would be. This concept applies to current clients and those you are seeking to make productive relationships with.

Lastly, be sure you know what the "no" you hear means- there is a big difference between, "No, never" and "No, not right now." Remember the "X" factor. There is an appropriate time for every purchase and if you have an established relationship with the prospect you have more of a chance at being there when their time to purchase arrives.

Your Prospect and Client Database

Once you have defined the demographics of your ideal prospect, you go about searching for prospects who fit that description. No matter how you gather your prospect information, it becomes essential that you organize the details in the most efficient manner. You need that information at your fingertips.

A properly maintained Marketing and Sales Database is an indispensable tool that you can sort or mine to concentrate of particular marketing segments. The information can also be copied or exported for a variety of marketing purposes such as a direct mail or any targeted marketing project.

Conversely, a poorly maintained Marketing and Sales Database will only lead to confusion. It is important, therefore, that a concise and well-organized Marketing and Sales Database be a high priority for your sales organization.

There are many, many different database and CRM programs available in the market. Perhaps the most important thing for you to know about any of them is that none is perfect! What ever program you select you will find it necessary to make compromises in what you’d like to accomplish or program them to meet your needs.

Here are some suggestions that may help you in selecting a program. There are a variety of web based programs available today and we recommend you take a close look at those. They offer the advantage of being available anywhere you have access to the internet. If you are a sole practitioner that may not be important to you, but if you have more than one person who will want to use the program, having it available through the web is a great option.

Here is another suggestion. Keep it simple! Buy something inexpensive and begin there. In our experience the chances of you hitting the right program the first or second time are slim to none. As you develop sophistication in using your database or CRM program you will find there are other things you would like it to do for you. So we recommend you let your solution grow with your experience.

Another big topic of conversation is: what information should you house in your database? Again, our recommendation is keep it simple and don’t put anything in your database that won’t make you money, especially if you expect your salespeople to input the data. You will find them motivated to collect and enter data that makes them money, but if it doesn’t do that, don’t expect a high level of compliance.

Most companies today still use either Outlook or Excel, or both, for their database. It’s all a matter of what you want to accomplish and how much you want to spend to accomplish it.

Another big issue that both we and our clients have run into to is the quality of the data entry work. You will find that some of your employees are comfortable with data entry and using a database or CRM package. But you will find others that are not, and often these will be your most senior sales reps. You will also find that many of your sales and customer service reps lack essential data entry skills. For instance, they may not be good spellers, aren’t careful about the accuracy of the data they collect, etc. In our case we found it necessary to have our databases routinely reviewed and corrected by skillful data entry specialists.

To learn more about your available database options just go to your browser and type in “Databases”. You will find thousands of sources of information. There are even magazines devoted to the subject.

No matter which system you employee, the Marketing and Sales Database should be organized and formatted to make the process of prospecting easier and more efficient for you. Your goal is achieving a seamless call flow to ensure maximum calling opportunities. Information properly gathered, maintained, and stored is the key to a functional, accurate database. Over time, your database will prove to be a major business asset.

At a minimum you are going to want your database(s) to help in two broad areas:

(1) Prospecting, and

(2) Working with and selling more to your existing clients.

Because this blog is primarily about prospecting I will outline what we think the essential elements of a prospect database are.

After developing your marketing and sales plan, setting marketing goals and sales objectives is the next step. That process includes deciding what you want to know about your prospects and their need for your product and/or service. That necessitates creating a prospecting script to gather the information you require. If you follow that logic, then you will understand the need to have locations in your database to store the information you collect. Along with gathering information you also need to have some means of measuring and prioritizing it.

I can tell you how we solve these issues for ourselves, but I cannot tell you the best way for you to resolve them. On the other, we would be glad to provide whatever advice we can.

At a minimum you are going to want to be able to separate your suspects from your qualified decision makers and the companies that do not meet your qualifying criteria. You will also find that some portion of your prospect list contains bad telephone numbers and/or mailing addresses. I hope you can see that there is a lot of pre-planning that goes into developing any type of successful database.

I’ve not written any of this to discourage you just to help you understand the complexity of developing a database that will aid you in accomplishing your goals. Every question I have raised has a solution. If we can help, we are prepared to do what we can to point you in the right direction.

Your Prospecting List and List Broker

Once you’ve made up your mind to prospect the first step is determining exactly who you want to contact. As we’ve discussed, a good place to begin putting together a prospect list is deciding what your ideal client looks like.

How many employees do they have?

What are their annual sales?

What industry or industries are they in?

Developing your ideal list criteria is a high leverage activity. Minutes here will save hours and hours of non-productive prospecting later.

One you’ve developed your ideal list criteria, you are ready for the next step, selecting a List Broker. There is no “best” List Broker, but in our opinion, good List Brokers specialize. At Ekstrom & Associates we can offer recommendations for companies with proven track records. We think Farm Market Id has the best agricultural lists available. Dunn and Bradstreet are usually recognized as the List Broker with the best financial information. Suffice it to say that we would be glad to provide whatever insights we can in helping you come up with the ideal List Broker for your needs. You are welcome to leave a comment or email me privately with your questions. If I can’t answer them, I will pass them onto someone who can.

Over the years different systems have been developed to group similar types of businesses together. The most popular system is called the Standard Industrial Classification or SIC codes. Don’t be mislead by the word “industrial” in SIC codes. SIC codes contain an entire listing or breakdown of virtually every business type. Everything from wholesalers, to manufacturers, to all types of Federal, State and local government entities, retailers, banks and financial institutions of all types, farmers by crop, contractors by specialty, etc., etc, etc. There are over 12,000 SIC codes and they remind me a bit of the Dewey Decimal System used by libraries. SIC codes move from the general to the specific. It can seem overwhelming, but using these codes can provide greater accuracy in the resulting information. At Ekstrom & Associates we can help you navigate the SIC codes effectively. Again, if you have questions, please email me. I promise to respond in a timely manner.

What information can you expect a List Broker to provide? First, you should expect your List Broker to provide you a count of the number of businesses within the geography you select that match your criteria. This count should be free. Then, depending on their specialty and the criteria you defined, here is a general idea of the information a List Broker should provide:

• Both company and decision maker names
• Physical and mailing addresses
• Telephone numbers
• Employee sizes
• Annual sales
• Email addresses
• Fax numbers
• County information, etc.

The vast majority of List Brokers have a minimum order size. Whoever you work with, you want to know up front what their minimum order size is and how they price their lists. If you check around you will find there is little standard pricing among List Brokers. We know of List Brokers that charge less than 10 cents a name while another List Broker charges over 30 cents for exactly the same information. Watch it carefully. Ask questions and do your due diligence.

Also keep in mind that the more specific your list criteria are the smaller and less expensive your list will be. By changing the criteria even slightly you can open up more possibilities and add more names to your list. As you are deciding how many names you want, consider your future needs as well as your current needs. That way you can get a large enough list to draw from as your projects change.

I’m sure you have heard the old adage about measuring twice and cutting once. Putting your list criteria together is a great example of how true that adage is. This is why it is so important to begin your list search with a clear sense of your project purpose and ideal client.

Once that you have your prospect list, you will next want to consider several other essential steps in formatting your Marketing & Sales Database. I’ll talk about these steps in my next blog.

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.