Sales Prospecting for Beginners: Everything You Need to Know
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Do you struggle to find new leads and grow your audience?
If so, you need sales prospecting.
Sales prospecting is one of the most important but often overlooked aspects of a successful sales strategy.
It's often overlooked because many people don't know where to start or that it's needed for growing their business.
Prospecting allows you to spend more time on qualified contacts, which is essential for growing your business faster and with less effort.
This guide will discuss sales prospecting, why it's essential, and how you can start your own sales prospecting strategy.
What is Sales Prospecting?
At its core, sales prospecting is the process of finding, qualifying, and contacting potential customers to generate new business.
This involves research, outreach, and follow-up. The outreach and follow-up can be done using any combination of the following mediums.
- Sending cold emails sent directly from your email account.
- Making a call or text.
- Sending a message on LinkedIn or What’sApp.
- Attending an event that you know your target person will attend.
Why is Sales Prospecting important?
The first step in winning new customers is to find them.
And that's just where sales prospecting comes in.
Sales prospecting creates a pipeline of qualified leads you can nurture into customers. So essentially, the more you prospect, the more opportunities you have, and the more closed deals you'll end up with.
Hello, growth!
Not sure where to start?
Our Step-By-Step Guide to Sales Prospecting walks you through the entire process. Click the button below to get access.
How to get started with Sales Prospecting?
Determine your target audience/persona
The first and most important step in sales prospecting is determining your target audience/persona. This will help you focus your efforts on finding individuals and companies more likely to be interested in what you offer. Once you have determined your target audience, it becomes much easier to know how to build a solid strategy to reach them.
Here are some resources to help you build your target persona:
Develop a strategy for your Sales Prospecting
When it comes to sales prospecting, there are two main approaches to generating prospects. Outbound and Inbound Sales. Some common tactics used within these two approaches include email outreach, LinkedIn InMail, and cold calling/texting. We recommend using a combination of the two approaches in your sales strategy.
Put yourself in your target persona’s position. How would you want to be contacted?
Think about what you will say to them when you connect with them on the call and in writing. Hint, hint: you need to have a value propositioning statement that will emotionally connect with them.
Make the connection more about them than you. Ask them how you can help them. Ask them how things are going regarding a pain point you know your service solves for them.
What will be the prospecting process? How often will you contact them? How many days will you wait in between each contact? Here’s great guidance to help make this better.
Want more in-depth guidance on building your sales prospecting process?
Download our step-by-step guide. Click the button below.
Use sales automation to make it easier
Once you have your strategy documented, make sales prospecting easier for yourself by using sales automation tools. Sales automation tools can help you automate repetitive tasks, such as sending emails, messaging, and scheduling appointments. This can free up your time to focus on other, more important steps in sales prospecting, such as developing relationships with potential customers.
If you're looking for a sales automation tool to help you with sales prospecting, consider using one of the following:
Sales prospecting can seem like a lot of work, but if you take the time to develop a strategy and use sales automation tools, it can be much easier. By following the steps outlined in this blog post, you'll be on your way to sales success!
Build a productive sales strategy
50% of sales time is wasted on unproductive prospecting and unqualified leads.
Don't be part of that statistic.
Our Step-By-Step Guide to Sales Prospecting walks you through the entire process.
