If you are like me, when you hear “prospecting” you think “cold calls,” an old-fashioned method of trying to find new sales opportunities. My distant memories of calling people almost at random to “get 60 seconds” to find out if they might need our product are more like nightmares. When interrupted randomly people can often be rude so making cold calls is no fun and I didn’t find many leads either.
Here’s the good news: Prospecting is still wildly important to crushing your sales goals, but making cold calls is no longer how most people prospect. Today’s methods are effective and minimally invasive to both parties. Here are a few of my favorites:
- Referrals: Ask your current customers for referrals to their colleagues who might be interested in your product. The key here is to ask consistently, verbally, by letter or email, etc., and ask at least once every two months. Like anything else, it will take your customers a few “asks” to get used to the idea of helping you with referrals.
- Email marketing: Send personalized emails to prospects who have been carefully vetted with some research. It must be personalized to them so this is a one-at-a-time deal. Templates don’t work anymore.
- Social media: Use social media platforms such as LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook to connect with potential customers and build relationships with them. This requires you to follow potential prospects, comment on what they post, be interested and then eventually to send them a message/DM to test the waters on if you might be able to help them with something.
- Content marketing: Create valuable content that addresses the needs and pain points of your target audience and use it to attract potential customers. If you want to pick one platform to focus on I would suggest LinkedIn as they have the most biz folks.
- Paid advertising: Use paid advertising channels such as Google AdWords and Facebook Ads to reach potential customers who are searching for products or services like yours. I would get an expert to help place these ads — they can be extremely effective but tricky to figure out. I love this one because it requires the least work on your part (just pay) and can be easily dialed up or down based on your targets.
- Partnerships: Partner with other businesses or organizations that have a similar target audience to reach potential customers who might be interested in your product or service. If you can find a partner that you can help that also can help you it is usually pretty easy to at least test the partnership.
Prospecting is a critical part of any successful sales organization. It helps you generate more leads, increase your sales, protect margin and build strong relationships. While it can be time-consuming and sometimes frustrating, the rewards are enormous.
If you want to sell more, you need to prospect more. I recommend 30 minutes early in your day, every day — and skip the cold calls.
John Sterling is the Amazon bestselling author of “Sales for Noobs” and CEO of NOOB School, an online resource for new salespeople. Previously, John helped build and sell Datastream for over $200 million. He has trained and hired hundreds of sales reps globally. Subscribe to his YouTube channel for new sales content every week. https://noobschool.org
