“When you properly prospect, it builds trust with potential clients and customers. It also expands your base of people who are working with you that lead to more referrals, recommendations, and repeat business.” – Meshell Baker in today’s Tip 1741
Are you prospecting like a pro?
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Transcript
Scott Ingram: You’re listening to the Daily Sales Tips podcast and I’m your host, Scott Ingram. Today’s tip comes from Meshell Baker, our favorite sales confidence igniter and authentic selling crusader. Here she is:
Meshell Baker: Hello. Today, we’re going to talk about prospecting like a pro. I want to share a quote with you by Brian Tracy. Keep your sales pipeline full by prospecting continuously. Always have more people to see than you have time to see them. Very important. First, I do want to point out that there are some challenges that people experience with prospecting, and some of them are like competition. There are so many companies with similar products on the market. It can be difficult to stand out and get noticed by potential clients and customers. This is a real thing. Then the changing customer behavior. Internet, social media, mailouts. There are so many ways to contact and get in touch and get information about them and from This can create a challenge in capturing and managing all that information and feedback and follow-up. Limited time is a real thing. So you’re juggling all the multitask, your responsibilities, the engagement. It can get in the way of effective prospecting. Rejection, and that is mental. So the disappointment, if you’re constantly being rejected, it could be internalized as a disappointment, which will cause challenges with prospecting. And the final is lack of resources. There’s many sellers have challenges with access to tools and the things they need to effectively prospect. And even in the midst of all of this, even if it’s a reality, a top performer will not be stopped and daunted by the list I just gave, the before mentioned. They will focus on the fact that they have something that’s valuable and amazing, and they will do whatever it takes, no matter what, to find those ideal clients that will be proper for their product.
So just a note, what is sales prospecting? It’s about finding and reaching out to potential clients and customers who match your ICP, that ideal client profile for your product offering. That will be another presentation. And you can Google ICP. Get clear on what that is so you know where to go and who to speak to. And it’s important that you feel your pipeline because when you do this, your business will work in your in your favor. Your sales role will work in your favor. Everything begins to work in your favor. The more prospecting you do, the more success you will achieve. It’s not often comfortable, and it is absolutely necessary for sales success to consistently prospect well.
Now, one of the things that great sellers are clear on when they’re prospecting is they can differentiate the difference between a lead, a prospect, and an opportunity. This is something that is very challenging for beginning in sales. And the sooner you get clear on this, the more success you will have. Lead, prospect, and opportunities. A lead is someone who has shown you interest. You’re out networking, you’re getting a marketing qualified lead internally, and it matches, or it looks like it, it seems it matches. It doesn’t always match. This is where the outreach and the conversation will clarify if it’s a sales qualified lead. So that’s a different conversation. You will always have more leads than you have prospects, which is the next level. So once you qualify it as a sale, now you can schedule and begin to have that conversation about if it’s a real match.
Remember, you want to align their solution or their problem with your solution, their desired outcome with your offer. You want to nurture. It might not happen in the manner. So when you’re qualifying it, this is where you get in the process, depending on the length of your sales, it may take longer than you want. And your willingness to be valuable is how it moves in your favorable direction. And always remember, no doesn’t mean not never. It just means not now. Your goal is to be so valuable. If they say no, you can always come back, and they’re often willing to give you recommendations or referrals.
And the final is opportunity. So lead prospect opportunity. Opportunity is that what it is. It’s somebody who’s a paying customer. This shifts happily, effectively when you’ve nurtured it and you’ve gone through the discovery process and you’ve clarified that what you offer is exactly what they are needing as their solution. I want to close with this, quote by Mary Kay Ash. When you pretend every single person you meet has a sign around his or her neck that says, make me feel important, not only will you succeed in sales, you will succeed in life. And this is important because when you properly prospect, it builds trust with potential clients and customers. It also expands your base of people who are working with you that lead to more referrals, recommendations, and repeat business. Have a great day selling.
Scott Ingram: For more from Meshell, just click over to DailySales.Tips/1741. Once you’ve clicked over there, be sure to click back here for another great sales tip. Thanks for listening!