Prospecting

Prospecting can have the greatest impact on a salesperson's success. There are many different approaches to prospecting, and I’ll outline others in more detail in future musings. However, there are some general themes, regardless of the product you are selling, that are critical to success. These themes are first: identifying the best people to contact; second: determining the mediums by which to contact those people; and third, the specific techniques used inside those mediums.

The first step in prospecting is to identify the individuals within an organization whom you are going to contact. Regardless of product, I recommend contacting executives in every  organization. There are important reasons for this: 1) executives can direct you quickly to the correct person to speak with about your solution; 2) when you are directed by an executive, very often you can sell a much more valuable deal because you are the first sales person at the party; 3) by contacting an executive, you quickly understand if there is an opportunity with this account. Many times I’ve reached a C-level on the phone and had them say “look I appreciate the reach out, but our budgets are tied for this quarter; reach back next quarter.”

The second step in successful prospecting is determining which of the multiple mediums you should be using to negotiate with your prospect. These include phone, email, social, and events. Each company and each buyer is going to respond differently to each medium. I’ve worked at some companies where email was more successful than phone---and vice-versa. As sales people, unless you have a plethora of data--and most orgs do not--you need to use multiple channels to get the attention of your prospect.

One of the most popular channels for prospecting is email. The challenge with email is that, on average, executives are receiving 200 emails per day, so there is a lot of competition for you, the sales person. The approach that I have found to be most successful is called “Why You, Why You Now?” This was developed by my mentor, Jeff Hoffman. To give you an example of what this technique looks like, here is a screenshot of a winner:

You’ll notice that this email is short, customized, and asks an open-ended question at closure. In this example, I got a meeting with the executive and was then referred quickly to his SVP, with whom I  worked during a three-month evaluation. 

Everyone is bombarded with information today, and executives are often feel buried under this information-blizzard. Prospecting at the executive level can be highly effective. However, you’ll want to use multiple mediums and have a specific customer-message that gets your point across quickly. With a thoughtful technique, you will have an opportunity to make a significant difference in your pipeline.