Looking for new customers? In today’s 24/7 plugged-in world, we tend to focus on the digital marketing tactics that are all the rage. Social media, SEO, and content marketing seem to get top billing of late but don’t let all the hype distract you from some of the simpler, low tech tactics that have worked […]
Prospecting
Are You Annoying Your Email Prospects?
Even though email marketing has higher conversion rates than social media and search engine marketing combined (Wordstream), it isn’t a panacea marketing channel. It has pros and cons like any other tactic. Email Marketing Pros It’s relatively inexpensive. Some email service providers (ESPs) offer free services if you have fewer than their maximum limit. And, […]
Prospecting Differentiation
We want our prospecting efforts with customers to stand out. To, somehow, differentiate ourselves from the dozens of other prospecting calls or emails our customers receive. Unfortunately, our efforts at differentiation tend to focus on the wrong thing: we focus on us, ourselves, our companies, what we sell. This leads our prospecting conversations to discussions […]
Stop Focusing on the Top of the Pipeline!
Virtually every sales person and organization have pipeline/funnel problems. Almost all the time, they are anemic. Virtually every pipeline has quality and integrity issues. Likewise, there are too many velocity issues. It seems the universal, go to solution for bad pipelines is to find more qualified opportunities. That is, we need to focus at the […]
Thanks for Training Me Not to Answer My Phone!
I’ve stopped answering my phone—whether it’s my office, mobile, or home phone, I’ve stopped answering it unless: I recognize the phone number and it’s someone I know. I recognize the caller ID and it’s someone I’m willing to talk with—either someone I know or a company/person that I’m willing to talk with. If for some […]
If Prospecting is the Toughest Part of Selling, Why Do We Put Our Least Experienced People in Those Roles?
Many people believe prospecting is the toughest part of selling. I’m actually not sure I believe that, but I do believe prospecting is tough. Our customers overwhelmed with just doing their jobs. Add on top of that, the fact they are constantly deluged with messaging from innumerable companies competing for attention and their budgets. Getting […]
How Are You Different?
I’m constantly amazed at the “sameness” of the majority of the prospecting I see. We inundate our prospects and customers with emails, social media outreaches, and phone calls that are virtually indistinguishable from those sent by everyone else. We blanket our prospects with one outreach after another. In most, we are pitching our products or […]
Prospecting: How Much Pre-Call Research?
How much pre-call research do you need to do to be effective in your prospecting? Frankly, it’s a really loaded question, with answers all over the place. Some argue you need to research deeply, learning as much as you can about the company and the individual as possible, becoming well informed about them and their […]
Are We Getting Prospecting Wrong?
Today, most of what I hear from sales people and executives is they are opportunity starved. They are all desperate to find more qualified opportunities. Prospecting and lead gen have become the dominant issues in many sales organizations. There are, of course, the ongoing challenges of making sales people understand they must prospect! Clearly, lead […]
