Wondering which steps in your sales process are essential and which could be cut? Honing your sales process is important. But one step you can’t afford to cut is prospecting. Here are several reasons why prospecting is essential and how to best utilize this step in your sales process.
Avoid Low Probability Prospecting
According to Sales Prospecting: Earning Presidents and Benjamins Faster, one way to increase the sales that you’ll generate from prospecting is to avoid low probability prospects. Those are the prospects that are highly unlikely to do business with you. By focusing efforts on low probability prospects, you’re wasting valuable time that could be spent developing business relationships with high probability prospects.
To weed low probability prospects from your sales funnel, you can ask a few qualifying questions when first starting the conversation. You can also avoid low probability prospects by honing your target market and seeking prospects who fit within that target market.
Refine Your Landing Pages
Let your content do some of the prospecting work for you. For example, your website’s landing pages should be crafted to peak the interests of high probability prospects and should spur them to take the next action of contacting you.
Important elements to include on your site’s landing pages include incentives for following through on your call to action, quotes from satisfied customers and a clear message that states the purpose of the landing page. Refined landing pages help you get more sales by connecting your content with high probability prospects and by weeding out those who are unlikely to do business with you.
Train Sales Reps
Do other employees at your business handle the sales process? If so, now is the time to train your sales team on proper prospecting techniques. Reps who are trained on prospecting will easily be able to tell the differences between low and high probability prospects, can push prospects through the sales funnel at an acceptable pace and can get the sale sooner.
Of course, proper sales training isn’t a one and done process. Rather, you should offer on-going trainings that allow your sales team to continually hone their sales tactics. Open dialogue should also be encouraged between your sales reps. This open dialogue will encourage the reps to share their best prospecting tactics.
Be Authentic
Don’t revert to using old school sales trickery and other underhanded methods to guide prospects through your sales funnel. Rather, to ensure that prospecting really does lead to increased sales, you should be authentic with prospects through each step of the sales process. Being authentic shows that you care about more than a prospect’s pocketbook and also helps you earn their trust.
Prospecting is an essential part of the sales process. Utilize this important step by avoiding low probability prospecting, by refining your sales content and more. By refining your prospecting tactics, you’ll soon be on your way toward increased sales.