‘Prospecting’ is an independent, distinct function from sales. Its purpose is to separate the wheat from the chaff prior to expending sales and marketing cost - leaving you with quality, qualified leads to enter the sales process. A better class of prospecting results in dramatic improvements in your prospects-to-sales conversion rate.

Quality is more important than quantity; it costs to take a prospect through the sales process. Each meeting, each telephone call has an associated cost. It is therefore vital to invest time into researching your market sweet spots and ensure you are pursuing prospects with both a reason and inclination to buy your product or service. Avoid wasting time on those prospects where you have few case studies and those lacking in sufficient ‘pain’, motive or capacity to buy. Use a script as the framework for your call to determine which key benefits have the most appeal and which qualifying questions get the best response. Get straight to the point and filter out time-wasters, focus on the cream. Once you establish that the prospect would benefit or perceives significant benefit by conducting business with you, make him aware of how - maximising your efforts here improves the effectiveness of sales visits.

There is no rush to corner or push the prospect immediately for a face to face visit; subtlety pays dividends here so be proactive and build up their interest by sending some info and follow it up with a call- then, when you are certain there is real interest, they have a budget and you have access to a decision maker, ask for an appointment. Trying to convert a lukewarm prospect may result in a hasty appointment being made only for the prospect to later cancel - wasting your valuable selling time.

Avoid filling up your pipeline with weak, unqualified prospects - even if your sales performance is looking a bit slim. Ask yourself: I am speaking to a professional with the ability to buy - can he make the final decision and move the buying process forward? Can he access funds that have not been allocated or budgeted for?

Remember that prospecting is not about selling but research and investigation. Free up your pipeline by being honest about which prospects are worth investing time and energy in.

Top Tips
• Remember: quality over quantity - the value of an organisation comes from its customer base.
• Focus on why customers might use your product and how it will benefit them.
• Identify organisational problems that you have solved really well in the past. How did they impact on the customer? Why did the buyer choose your product/service?
• Identify a list of similar organisations.
• Next, sketch out a plan to contact them - e.g. through referrals, networking, direct via telephone, direct mail.
• Always ask for referrals when customers are happy.
• Publish your list of prospects so that others can help.

Questioning Skills
Polished pitches and killer closes will rarely get you the sale as your spiel needs to be tailored to the prospect - simply launching into a presentation extolling the virtues of your product or service will more often than not miss the mark as it does not address the issues most relevant to the prospect.
Put simply: you cannot convince the prospect of your product or service’s value if you don’t know what is of value to him.
Failing to address his wants and needs deprive him of a compelling reason to buy. The easiest way to find out what is important to him is to ask appropriate questions.
The best type of questions are open-ended (starting with why/what/where/why/when and how) as they encourage the prospect to open up and share information about his specific, highly individual needs or those areas of service which are most important or could be improved on. Pay close attention as, if you ask the right questions in a friendly tone, the prospect will give you all the information you need to close him. If you are not getting the information you want or it is too vague, be direct and ask him outright what exactly it is he is looking for.
The right questions allow you to determine whether the prospect would benefit from your product or service, has a budget and is able to make a buying decision. In short, questioning is vital in helping sales people avoid the time wasting pursuit of poor prospects who are unable or unwilling to commit. See your role as an equal partner to the buyer - valuable in helping him navigate through the buying process with your questions providing clarification and direction.
Distinguish yourself from the competition by taking the time to learn about your prospect through questioning - it will give him compelling reasons to do business with you and provide you with all the selling points needed to act as his trusted advisor and close professionally.

Top Tips
• Asking questions helps to focus your pitch on the prospect’s perspective and circumstances:
• Their current reality - what is going on in their job, department etc;
• Their reasons for change -recent events that prompted them to seek out new ways of doing things;
• The repercussions of inaction - what happens if they do nothing or stick with the same supplier;
• The return on investment - what do they gain by going with your product or service.
• Questions can be open or closed - use open questions to solicit information and discover the prospect’s hot buttons.
• Closed questions have specific answers and can be used to direct the conversation or confirm

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