Organising and managing prospecting in the right conditions
Three keys to managing your B2B prospecting as effectively as possible
- Segment
- Rank
- Plan ahead
Organising your prospecting obviously starts with setting objectives, and if you set objectives, you need to be able to analyse the results achieved against them.
Results means sales!
Before you get to a sale, you need to be able to submit quotes.
And ideally, you need to be able to submit a quote in the right conditions.
To submit quotes, you need to meet the right people in the right companies at the right time
To meet them, you need to be able to interest them.
And finally: which company profiles are the most interesting, and where do they come from?
Segment
Managing your prospecting first means managing your database properly by segmenting it
The way you feed your database will influence the results.
Segments should be defined according to the data sources and/or business profiles or other parameters.
These segments will allow you to build a tailored approach: a different script, a different approach method, different emails, different salespeople…
Rank
Set up an ABCD ranking of companies: from the most interesting to the least interesting,
Define the criteria that characterise an A company, the one for which you will make the greatest possible sales effort.
Then define those that will be ranked B or C, for which you will not make too much effort, as the chances of selling to them are much lower.
Finally, rank the companies that are not at all interesting as D. You will never sell to them! So there is no point investing time in them. These are generally companies that do not decide on the purchase of a given service, companies that depend on a parent company based abroad, companies in financial difficulty, …
The criteria that determine this ranking should be distinguished at two levels:
1. a priori
2. a posteriori
A priori - based on my gut feeling or what I know - this company should be ranked A, B, C or D.
A posteriori, that is to say after a call, after a discussion with someone involved in the decision-making process, you will be able to confirm that it is ranked A, B, C or D
Plan ahead
Plan the next step
Selling a product or service to a company means managing a project.
It is a matter of defining the stages of that project, which allows you to see how it is progressing.
At each stage, confirm that it is complete and move on to the next one.
Schedule it in your diary.
Plan this next step by mutual agreement with your contact.
Each mini-agreement contributes to the success of the big final agreement: the signature!
When it comes to prospecting, every action taken must generate a result. (Otherwise, it has not been done)
I called the company: did I speak to someone involved in the decision-making process?
If it is the right person, what did we agree on: a call back, sending an email, arranging a meeting?
Who needs to do what, and when?
That is the key to the sale: getting agreement on the next action.
And the more agreements you have, the closer you get to the sale.
Would you like to think about how to put this into practice in your organisation? Let's discuss it in a meeting by clicking here
