6 Tips for Productive Prospecting

Craig Rosenberg is working on a book, “Tips for Sales Prospecting Into Small Businesses,” for Radius (radiusintel.com), and asked me to contribute a few tips. I’m posting them here, and if you’d like to contribute your favorite to the discussion, just leave a comment below.

It comes to every salesperson: That time when the top of your funnel just isn’t full enough, your opps are a little too lean. The marketing team is running full out, but you just need a little more. It’s time to unearth some new opportunities…it’s time to pick up that phone and go prospecting. Here are six ways to make prospecting productive.

1. Know your best customers, the ones you want to replicate. Know why they bought your product (ask them if you have to) and be able to verbalize this in no more than two sentences.
2. Be real. Prospecting dialogues are too short for BS, and people can sniff it out anyway.
3. Focus. Schedule time to prospect, and during that time, do nothing else but prospect. Everything else can wait.
4. Organize your call list to have similar profile contacts (industry or vertical, C level, upsell). You’ll develop a talk track rhythm.
5. If something works more than once, do it over and over until it stops working, then do it a few more times.
6. Never argue. If someone is annoyed, apologize for bothering them, note the record or opt them out, and move on.

A 2012 report by Aberdeen Group found that on average, B2B salespeople spend something like 200 hours a year prospecting. That’s two weeks out of your life; make it count.

Please share your favorite prospecting tactic.