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Sales prospecting helps you find potential customers who haven’t yet realized they have a problem—and therefore haven’t turned to search for solutions.
It helps you expedite the research process using fewer searches, answer questions the marketing team hasn’t created content for, and create a personal connection that makes your brand stand out when it’s time to make a purchasing decision.
But if everyone’s inboxes and calendars are full and people are prone to ignoring calls from phone numbers they don’t recognize, is it even possible to succeed with sales prospecting these days?
According to the results of our latest survey, It absolutely is!
We asked more than 50 sales professionals to share their most effective sales prospecting tips. With the provided answers, you can start self-generating leads, getting more calls on your calendar, and boosting the number of prospects who convert into customers.
In this post, you will learn the following:
Sales prospecting is the first step in the sales process. It involves identifying, engaging, and qualifying new opportunities (i.e. prospects) to add to your sales pipeline.
While the process varies based on the industry and type of business you run, prospecting usually involves:
Just do a quick search on G2, Capterra, or even a quick Google search, and you’ll find hundreds of free and paid sales prospecting tools. These tools range from helping you build your list to finding contact information and engaging with prospects.Here are 20 top-rated sales prospecting tools that will help you build your list and engage with prospects:
There are many different ways to get in touch with prospects—email, phone, social, and even direct mail—but which channel is the most effective?
Nearly 40% of our respondents voted email as the best channel, while almost 30% said phone was best:
“For me, email has been the most effective channel for booking qualified sales meetings,” says G2 Crowd’s Izabelle Hundrev.
“Treat your prospects like humans instead of people you’re trying to sell to. Be personable and communicate in the same way you would with a colleague. Be professional, but find ways to get creative and pique prospects’ interests. These are the easiest ways to stand out in a sea of emails filled with jargon and impersonal language.”
Pro Moulds’ Charlie Worrall says phone is his most effective channel: “Getting on the phone with a potential client is one of the best ways to get a meeting scheduled, especially if you’re trying to talk to someone in the C-suite.”
A phone call helps to humanize your brand, gives it a voice, and adds a personal touch. It shows people that you care and that you are not just some faceless company. People are social beings, therefore, they enjoy human interaction and always prefer having a personal experience.
And Growth Hackers’ Jonathan Aufray says, “Social media is probably the most time-effective and cost-effective channel to fill your sales funnel with qualified prospects. Why? Because no matter who’s in your target audience, they’re on social media.
You could reach out to them by connecting on LinkedIn, running Facebook ads, posting engaging content on Instagram, or sharing your blog posts on Twitter. With social media, you’ve got so many options available and testing to do.”
But Jumpfactor’s Zamir Javer says there is no such thing as one best channel.
“Multichannel is the key today,” says Javer. “You can’t rely on one channel. You need to leverage email, social, display, mobile, search, and content to drive maximum engagement and get the most conversions. And finally, you have to be consistent. You can’t start and stop and expect to see results.”
Smart Sales Managers know that to achieve your monthly and quarterly goals, you have to monitor your team’s sales performance on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis. To do that, you need an actionable dashboard that summarizes both team and individual sales rep metrics and allows you to:
If you use the HubSpot CRM, you can benefit from the experience of our sales experts, who have put together a plug-and-play Databox template showing some of the most important metrics for monitoring your sales team performance. It’s simple to implement and start using as a standalone dashboard or in sales reports, and best of all, it’s free!
You can easily set it up in just a few clicks – no coding required.
To set up the dashboard, follow these 3 simple steps:
Step 1: Get the template
Step 2: Connect your HubSpot account with Databox.
Step 3: Watch your dashboard populate in seconds.
Below, we’re sharing some tips and best practices to help you turn more leads into paying customers.
“Know your audience,” says Richard Walsh of Chirp Media, Inc. “You need to know their pains, their desires, and what makes them special. Then you can truly focus your efforts on finding the ones that work best with you. Your capacity will thank you in the long run.”
Matt Sunshine of the Center for Sales Strategy adds, “Make sure you are focused on the best prospects. Ideally, a prospect should meet your target business profile, which includes dollar potential, access to a decision-maker, and fit with the product or service that you sell.”
“Take time to research your prospect and determine a valid business reason for them to meet with you,” says Dean Moothart of LeadG2. “Put yourself in the prospect’s shoes. We know why you want to meet with them. But why would they want to meet with you? What’s in it for them?”
Jen Lombardi of Kiwi Creative says, “One of our best tips for booking qualified sales meetings is to understand the prospect you’re talking with. In other words, do your research!”
If you don’t know where to start, Kiwi Creative, a HubSpot Platinum Partner, uses tools from their CRM that show where their prospects visit on their website and blog. By analyzing this type of data, you can see what interests your prospects and determine if that particular contact is a viable choice for a sales call. Plus, you can incorporate these interests into your initial discussions! Explore some more CRM dashboard examples here
You shouldn’t say things such as “I see that on July 2, you visited this page on our website.” because that would (obviously) seem creepy! Instead, use this information to your advantage when discussing the services your company offers. If a prospect feels that you understand and empathize with their pain points, you’ll have a higher chance of making a deal!
Karlee Tate of Canal HR agrees, “To book more qualified sales meetings, you’ll need to educate yourself on your prospective clients by conducting thorough research on their industry, company, location, and culture. Your research will allow you to tailor your pitches to specific clients to facilitate more booked qualified sales meetings.”
“Utilize resources such as the client’s website, the latest books on the client’s industry, and the client’s regulations and compliant policies based on their location. Your goal is to identify the prospect’s problem and suggest your product or service as a valuable resolution.”
“However, ensure that you research outside of calling hours to prevent yourself from missing an opportunity to learn about the prospect from a person who has valuable experience in that field.”
Charles Musselwhite of Musselwhite Marketing adds, “There is a lot of talk about targeting your prospecting efforts for obvious reasons, but that is part of the job! In my line of work, it isn’t enough just to know who our desired prospect is in terms of demographics. We’ve found that doing a little digging and stacking the info in your favor goes A LONG LONG WAY.”
In other words, you need to know more than just the names of the prospect business you want to pursue. Take some extra time to research your prospect. It’s very helpful to have an idea of what the prospects’ interests are. You want answers to questions like:
“There’s a goldmine of info online, and it’s at your fingertips. Mining this data and USING it will pay dividends by experiencing increased and easier conversions.”
“I mean that sincerely, as we’ve found that we make better connections when we are prepared adequately. Charisma is also important, and it can be magnetic! As one of our coaches used to say, you are interesting (to a prospect) when you are interested.”
“Being interesting is a huge advantage at work and in life. People want to spend time with you, and they’re more likely to enjoy the time you spend together.”
“So do yourself a favor and be interested in your prospect by researching them before you ever talk to them!”
“Data, data, data,” says Ney Lins of Echoworx. “Spend more time getting to know your prospect and account. Try to understand their needs, challenges, motivations, and build an appropriate use case with this information.”
“Once you send an invitation or meet a prospect at a tradeshow, show them you did your homework. Show your prospects that you know what you are talking about and how you can really solve their problems rather than only sell to them.”
“It’s all about making the prospect’s life easier,” says Björn Fröhlich of Smallpdf. “That means figuring out how our product helps them and then communicating this value proposition in a way that speaks to them.”
Kirby Wilkerson of The Impact Kind says, “Being clear on your website about what you offer, what can you do for customers, and how can your customers get started.”
“Showcase your success stories, highlight new and old clients, and have testimonials on your site: these are just a few of the best ways to increase sales meetings,” adds Srish Agrawal of A1 Future Technologies. “Testimonials work best, especially if you can display them on the form that prospects use to book meetings.”
“Personalized outreach,” says Anna Tkachenko of CIENCE. “Let your prospect feel that you’re their friend, trying to help, not just selling something.”
Dani Buckley of LeadG2 adds, “Customize your approach. Don’t use a one-size-fits-all process but instead create structured sales plays, templates, and resources that, at the same time, allow flexibility and customization. “
“This way, when you’re engaging with a prospect, you’re talking to THEM and keeping in mind the unique challenges, interests, and questions that someone in their role, in their industry, at their stage of the buyer’s journey would respond to.”
“You always want to offer something of value,” says Referral Rock’s Christian Morris. “Before you book a meeting with someone, you want to know enough about them that you know why your solution can be valuable for them.”
“For example, when someone starts to research a referral platform, they start to get an idea of the features they need. So initially, you can call attention to certain features by saying something like ‘have you considered this,’ or ‘make sure to do this.’
Since they are in this early research stage, you should offer content or something that will be genuinely valuable to them instead of just saying, ‘Buy us. We’re cheap.’
“The whole sales process is—in some ways—trying to establish yourself as a valuable resource.”
Prosper for Purpose’s Lorraine Schuchart agrees, “Offer to discuss their biggest problem related to your services—for free. By providing some value in advance, you have the opportunity to demonstrate your expertise and inspire trust.”
“Connect better to close better,” says Plog’s Ramón. “If you connect, you will understand that the business appointment is not to sell but, instead, to understand and propose something of value.”
“Send short and sweet messages,” says Ben Walker of Transcription Outsourcing. “Don’t write more than four sentences, and keep those sentences short. We have tested this many times on LinkedIn, and we’ve found that the shorter your message is, the better.”
Empathy First Media’s Daniel Lynch agrees: “In your cold call, email, or initial outreach, be quick and to the point about what problem you can potentially solve for that prospect.”
“If your email headline, chatbot message, or elevator pitch doesn’t hit the nail on the head, it is going to be hard to get people to commit 30 minutes of their lives to you.”
“Know when to call and reach out,” says Oliver Lopez of Structsales. “It’s all about timing.”
La Team Web’s Aurélien Dréan agrees, “We use tools from our CRM that allow us to enroll our leads and prospects into email sequences. The CRM tracks when they react to our emails and if they consult our ebooks or website pages.”
“Then, we just need to connect with them at the right time. Prospects almost always appreciate our outreach because these tools allow us to call them when they are ready to talk about their needs.”
Another way to ensure you reach out to your prospects at the right time is by monitoring buying triggers. Buying triggers help identify the key moments when prospects are most likely to make a purchase.
“Make it easy to book time with you and automate the follow-ups,” says David Khim of Omniscient Digital. “Our website has a contact form that anyone can fill out to request a consultation.”
“We’ve automated this so that, based on the responses, the user will be sent to a calendar page to schedule a consultation with us right away.”
“If they don’t book a meeting with us immediately, they’ll receive an email in 30 minutes to book a consultation meeting. We follow up three times, and if they don’t book a meeting, we stop bothering them.”
“If they do book a meeting, we send an automated email with the details they shared with us and a reminder email for the appointment, so they remember to show up.”
“One way to increase the number of qualified sales meetings in your calendar is to use an online scheduling tool like Calendly,” says Colton De Vos of Resolute Technology Solutions.
“These scheduling tools range from no-cost to low-cost, integrate with your work calendar, and can include customized messaging that allows prospects to check off certain qualification boxes and pick an available time in your calendar to connect.”
“You pre-set which time slots you allow people to book in and give them free rein to meet with you in those given times. Scheduling tools cut out the back and forth required to find a time that works for both parties, while also collecting some qualifying details upfront. If you haven’t already investigated these types of tools, it’s worth getting one set up.”
Jonas Olausson of Joinative says, “The page where your booking widget is placed should contain all the key points that describe your product or service. Don’t just list the benefits of your offer but highlight the situations where it’s highly relevant.”
“For instance, on our product demo page, instead of saying ‘Get the most informative native advertising performance reports in no time,’ we say ‘Have Taboola and Outbrain campaign data in one dashboard and access exclusive reporting features.’
Using this description, we make sure we receive requests from people running campaigns on one or both of these platforms, and not on Facebook.”
Dai Baker of Dai Baker Creative Group LLC adds, “Have clear and specific questions attached to your calendar booking link that will help state who your qualified client is. Make it clear that this is a sales call for someone ready to book and ready to take action. This way, you will eliminate those who are just shopping around.”
“Be specific about the problems you help solve,” says Lori O’Connor of Leighton Interactive. “Come to the meeting prepared to show you understand your prospect’s problem and the impact to their company if they don’t fix it. After you’ve established credibility, talk about how you’ve helped other companies solve that type of problem.”
Jonathan Aufray of Digital Growth Hackers adds, “A sales meeting is not a discovery meeting. What you want to do is convert a lead into a sale. In other words, you want to close the sale.”
“To make sure you book more qualified sales meetings, you want to show your prospects that you can solve their problem before the meeting happens. It can be via email where you would show them the benefits of your product or service. Once you feel your prospect is interested, you can book a sales meeting.”
”Pick up the phone,” says Andrew Schutt of Schutt Media. “Particularly, call people you’re connected with on LinkedIn and ask them how you can support them.”
“Most people will be thrilled that you took the time to call them up and see how you can help.”
“Naturally, people are going to ask what you do and how you can help them. This is an excellent opportunity to give them a quick elevator pitch about the problems you can help them solve and the results you can help them achieve.”
“If they express interest, let them know you’d be happy to dive in a little deeper and offer more support at a later time. Then you’ve got yourself a sales meeting!”
Ricardo Mello of Manhattan Miami Real Estate agrees, “I’m a big fan of cold calls. Most people are intimidated by cold calling. There’s a lot of rejection that comes with it. One strategy I have found effective is calling prospects early in the morning or later in the afternoons.“
“This is especially relevant for B2B sales because it can help you get past the gatekeeper. It can be frustrating if you call a prospect and can’t get past the secretary or analyst who answers the phone.”
“Calling at a different time can increase the chances that you will be able to speak with a decision-maker and, therefore, able to book more sales meetings with prospective clients.”
“You have to realize that booking calls are not just about solving the problem, but also about developing a relationship and building trust,” says Jeff Green of Green Thoughts Consulting.
“The best way to do that is through email nurture sequences. You want to get more email signups through your website, and then nurture them with varying calls to action that include book now.”
“One effective prospecting tip I’ve been using to great effect is to combine phone and email together,” says James Pollard of The Advisor Coach. “If I call someone and that person doesn’t answer the phone, I send an email right away.”“I’ve found that a large percentage of people will respond to the email when they won’t pick up the phone or return my call. This allows me to qualify them further.”“For example, if they clearly tell me they’re not interested, I will eliminate them from my pipeline and avoid wasting precious time. This allows me to be a more efficient (and productive) prospector.”
*Editor’s note: CallRail users can download this free template to track and visualize all of their inbound call prospecting, including which sources are driving the most phone calls.
“Alignment. Alignment. Alignment,” says Ryan Ruud of Lake One. “If your sales and marketing teams aren’t on the same page of what the definition for a qualified appointment is, then what’s the point?“
“Get the two groups in a room and talk. What does the sales team need to know about a prospect? What can the marketing team do to help get those answers? Start there. It’s simple, but sometimes it’s the simple things that have the biggest impact.”
“Tara McQuaide of Indicative adds, “In short, have seamless integration among marketing and sales via both qualitative and quantitative analysis. Internally at Indicative, we are an open book.“
“Meaning, there is often open discussion several times a week around the quality of leads that come in from marketing activities or MQLs. The feedback loop is incredibly important to iterate and fortify new tests.“
“For marketing to be successful on the front-end, marketers need to have a strong grasp on what the sales team is looking for – as the leads driven via marketing will have a goal of getting into the hands of sales, or a qualified sales meeting.“
“One great way of doing this is by documenting your sales journey or growth funnels (literally), and interviewing each sales member individually (from SDR to CRO) to extract what they are looking for from a lead at each stage. This will often uncover the criteria for targeting.“
“Wondering what language to use in advertising or content marketing topics? Watch sales call recordings, or read transcriptions – study the questions being asked by prospects on the phone.“
“Additionally, it is vital to look at your analytics. You need to understand exactly where your previous customers have come from, and their journeys to reach a conversion: in this case, that conversion being booking a meeting with sales.“
“Once you’re tracking this data and analyzing it inside a customer analytics platform (like Indicative), you can spot patterns that both marketing and sales teams can double or triple-down, depending on the success and your desired goals.“
“A healthy combination of the above will give marketing a great direction to help out their sales teammates, and ultimately lead to more qualified sales meetings as those who come within your brand’s ecosystem already know what to expect and what they are looking for – aka seamless.”
Get a broader overview of all the sales qualified leads in your funnel using this sales leads dashboard.
“I’m a big believer in getting conversations started and then learning as much as possible and early in the process if the products or services offered are what the client is looking for, or a good fit,” says David Haar of Hubbard Phoenix.
“The best way to achieve this is by being honest and transparent about the areas in which your company or service is excellent and areas in which you may not be able to help. By having a good conversation about how you can really help another business with a challenge they are facing, you’ll have more quality meetings.“
“You also have to be open and honest about your budget range and determine your prospect’s expected budget range. Getting buy-in from the prospect if that is in their expected range will also go a long way.”
Deniz Doganay of Digital Debut says, “Ask the right questions:
“Sometimes it also pays off to ask the potential client if they have an allocated marketing budget they need to adhere to. Many times, they will be hoping you can tell them what that budget is.“
“However, if they have allocated a set amount they cannot go over, and that amount will not satisfy their expectations, there is no need to proceed any further.“
“Even if you can show them you are building value from your services if the budget isn’t there, there is nothing you can do. The last thing you want to do is lower your cost and then pull resources from the campaign, resulting in underwhelming results.“
“However, it is still essential to keep in touch with prospects and build value here and there as you never know what may come from it later.”
Bob Sabra of Hovi adds, “BDRing.That’s the key. Layers of onion. Re: Aaron Ross’ Predictable Revenue. Your SDRs/BDRs need to qualify hard against your ICP (Ideal Customer Profile).“
“They need to identify need, authority, budget, and timeline, or lack thereof. They also need to discern the DMU (Decision Making Unit) for the sales meeting to be approached correctly and efficiently.”
“Build prospect discovery questions into your sales process,” says Melissa Hughes of Foundation Marketing. “Spend less time positioning the features and benefits of your solution and more time collecting a perspective on your prospect’s pain points. Prospect pain points are the #1 topic of discussion in a qualified sales meeting.”
If you’re doing cold outreach, it’s key to make sure the data you’re using to contact prospects is accurate,” says LeaseFetcher’s Will Craig.
“It really pays to make sure that you’ve got the most accurate email addresses possible when you’re contacting sales prospects. This will really improve your conversion rate when it comes to booking more sales meetings“.
“After all, if you’re trying to get in touch with a specific person on the phone, you don’t just call any old number and hope that you find that particular person. You aim to find the most relevant number for your purpose.“
“It goes without saying that you should do exactly the same when it comes to contacting a prospect via email.”
“Use LinkedIn properly,” says Ruth Plater of Radial Path. “Pay for LinkedIn Sales Navigator, use its market, industry vertical, company type, and job title filters to create targeted lists, and start sending connection requests with personalized messages.”
Plater wasn’t the only respondent who’s a fan of LinkedIn Sales Navigator. In fact, our respondents listed it more often than any other tool when asked what tools they use for sales prospecting:
“Once those connections accept, start to gently reach out to gauge interest in what you’re doing,” says Plater. “If the target list is correct, and you understand your audience, most contacts will welcome the engagement.“
“Don’t be too salesy right off the bat. Remember, this is digital door-knocking and networking for the modern world, so don’t go straight for the sale. Build relationships.”
*Editor’s note: If you’re interested in finding out if your company’s efforts on LinkedIn are attracting the right prospects, download this LinkedIn demographics dashboard to get a quick, overall view of your followers’ job titles, industries, company sizes, locations, and more.
“Hold yourself accountable to a specific number of sales meetings that you book each day/week,” says Chris Mason of HealthMarkets. “Whatever that number is, don’t quit until you reach that standard. That little extra effort each day will make all the difference in the world – especially when done day after day and drawn out over an extended period of time.“
“Successful people make habits of doing things that less successful people aren’t willing to do.”
Editor’s note: To make sure your sales reps are reaching the set prospecting benchmark, track their sales activity, or take it a step further and start tracking close rate by individual sales rep. Here’s how:
“I find online forms as perfect solutions for booking qualified sales meetings,” says Olivian Stoica of 123FormBuilder. “You can use the form to ask your lead specific questions that will help you prepare for the meeting. It can lead to a higher success rate at sealing new deals, and you can filter out the less engaging leads. All in all, you can gain more prospects at a lower expense.”
“Sell the appointment,” says Alexander Porter of SearchItLocal. “A mistake made by too many salesmen is to sell the product or the service they supply.“
“This is like going up to a stranger on the street and asking them to marry you. You need to slow down, wine and dine your prospects, and court them.“
“Instead of selling the outcome, sell the appointment.“
“What benefits will they get from your call? How will they feel afterward? What new attitudes or skill sets will they gain from the call?“
“Each of these benefits is available for FREE! Your meeting costs nothing but needs to promise everything!“
“In contrast, no matter how transformative these benefits are, they’ll still be attached to a number if you sell the product or service directly.“
“This creates a level of friction that can cripple your conversions – whereas hammering a sales message only leads to missed opportunities.“
Rachel Williams, Director of Sales and Partnership at Calendly, calls this the “Show up and Throw up” method.
“So forget the end goal, and forget the price of your product. Your goal is to sell a free call, consultation, or demo. Outline the list of benefits on offer – all for a little investment of time, and you’ll move towards more sales meetings with qualified prospects.”
For example, Matt Holmes of Handshaking.com says, “If you ask to interview someone about their success, that opens the door 9 out of 10 times, instead of asking for a call or coffee meeting, which might work 1 out of 10 times.”
Track your call volume and sales team activities at any given time using this call tracking dashboard.
“When emailing new prospects, remember that you’re pushing for a response, not a phone call,” says Smallpdf’s Hung Nguyen. “If you spark enough interest, the prospect will get on a call with you eventually. So don’t just end your message with ‘let’s jump on a call this Monday.’ It might come across as overly pushy.”
Kinetix Media Communications’ Paula Skaper says, “When you can, build a relationship first, and base your ask for a meeting on a challenge that’s already been acknowledged rather than guessing.”
Paige Arnof-Fenn of Mavens & Moguls adds, “I am a big fan of email marketing to book sales meetings. It is a cost-efficient way to build your brand and deepen your relationships through ongoing communication. In my experience, the best ways to leverage e-mails are:
Send along additional info, article, or a link they might find interesting or useful and suggest something like: “I’d love to discuss this further, so if I don’t hear back from you by X date I will reach out again.”
Follow up as promised in a professional way giving them the benefit of the doubt (“Just touching base as promised, I know how busy you are and if the timing works, I am very interested in chatting further and would be happy to provide any additional info that might be helpful.”)
If there is still no response, I always give it a third attempt. I recognize that this is not their main priority and that I want to be respectful of their time
If being pleasantly persistent is not effective you may just have to lay low or try sending another article, white paper, or link later to see if that prompts any response.
Stalking never works. If you end up selling to another similar business, it is always a good idea to close the loop and let them know what you see in the market. Send them a link to connect on LinkedIn and offer to stay in touch, it is a classy move, and they will remember you as the one who got away. Next time they will get back to you faster, I bet.”
If you are going to request a meeting immediately, DevBev Co.’s Devin Beverage recommends a low-pressure approach:
“Don’t ask: ‘Could we meet for coffee and discuss what our services could do for you?’ Try this instead: ‘Let’s meet for coffee and see if we might be a fit. If it’s not a fit, then I’m happy to point you in the right direction. What days work best to meet?’”
You kill three birds with one stone here.
Jessica Johnson of Beyond Big Blue Digital Marketing Agency says, “Always book a review meeting after the initial sales meeting. Put it on the calendar as a tentative time slot for you to meet again, trust me, a follow-up meeting is always a good idea.”
“It sounds simple, but make sure you’re attracting and retaining the right users to your website,” says Ashlee Rolkowski of Lone Fir Creative.
“Often, businesses will get hyperfocused on attracting more users to their website and getting them to fill out a form. You need to focus on attracting the right users (your ideal customers) and giving them content geared towards their specific problem. Attract the right users to your site, and your sales leads will start to increase in quality.”
“The best way to successfully book more sales meetings is by always delivering great results to your clients,” says Guava Family’s Scott Crumrine. “Once you’ve gained the trust of a business owner and delivered time after time, you’ll be given access to their personal network, which will lead to tons of meetings.”
“Leverage your customers & network,” says Dipak Vadera of Leadfeeder. “As the saying goes, if you don’t ask, you don’t get.“
“If you’ve gone out of your way and made a real difference for prospects & clients in the past, I don’t see why they should have an issue with introducing you to someone in their network who meets your ideal customer profile and buyer persona.“
“After all, word-of-mouth is the most powerful kind of referral you can have, instantly fostering a great deal of trust because you are being backed by someone who is seen as a credible source by the prospect. “
“One reason people are hesitant to take sales meetings is because they don’t like to be sold, but they sure love to buy!”
“The number one way that I prospect and get meetings booked is by being authentic and engaging with potential clients on a one-on-one basis,” says 2060 Digital’s David Haar.
“No shortcuts, no spamming, no blasting lists, and no buying lists—just treat all potential customers like human beings who have specific goals in mind that I may or may not be able to help with.”
“If it seems like I could help and there is a good fit, we should chat. If there really isn’t much we could do together, let’s not waste each other’s time.”
“I find that being honest and open about what it is that I do and why I thought we could do good things together tends to resonate well with people that are used to getting bombarded all day with the latest bright, shiny, penny solution or tactic that they just have to check out.”
“Slowing things down and getting back to the basics of why two companies could be working together tends to be the best way for me to book meetings each week.”
Catalyst Marketing Agency’s Oliver Roddy agrees, “Forget that you’re trying to sell something, forget about the commission, and forget about your business’ growth. Instead, focus on if and how you can help them. What are their challenges, and how can your organization help to solve them?”
“As long as you focus on their needs and wants, you will genuinely help people; that’s a service people are more than happy to pay for. But when you make it all about you, you end up trying to fit square pegs through round holes and forcing the process through.”
“Just make sure your whole approach is about the prospect, and you’re guaranteed to turn more prospects into meetings.”
“Ask for feedback on what you’re selling instead of trying to sell them on something at first, especially if you are a startup (but even if you’re not),” says Momentum Canada’s Corey Dugas.
“Often, we’re introducing something new to someone, so instead of selling them on features, ask them what they think. People love giving their opinion, especially if they feel it might help someone out.”
“Once you get further along in the discussion, you can ask if this is something they would ever consider purchasing—but don’t walk into the conversation with that intention.”
“Open up the floor for discussion with your prospect instead of driving it in your direction. You can learn a lot about how your business is perceived by people who are just learning about it.”
“If you’re gaining leads from website visitors, think about adding gated content on specific topics,” says Chris Gadek of AdQuick. “This way, you can see exactly what is of interest to a lead, rather than just knowing that they want to sign up for a newsletter or receive a coupon.”
David Hoos of Conversmart says, “Take your content that has organically driven the most leads, and put it in front of more of your audience with paid social.”
“Put together an interesting event about your topic and advertise it on social media,” says Pulpmedia’s Paul Lanzerstorfer. “Then, interested people will come to you, and you can get a follow-up meeting with them more easily.”
Jared Cohen of Iffel International adds, “One strategy we have been using to attract and filter qualified leads is by running highly specific industry webinars for each industry vertical that we are focused on.”
“By attracting prospective clients through email lists and social channels, we provide free marketing advice while solidifying ourselves as a source of authority for their industry.”
Use this sales events dashboard to keep tabs of event goals, activities and sales targets in real-time.
“Incorporate video into your communication,” says Alex Ratynski of Ratynski Digital. “Most salespeople tend to send text-only email communication or communicate via phone. Using a video tool like Loom is simple, fast, and extremely effective when it comes to helping new prospects connect with you and your company.”
Simple Selling’s Derek Marin says, “Add a video to your email signature. Then, at the end of that short, introductory video, include a call-to-action to book a meeting.”Or, you can get even more creative and create personalized TikToks, as this clever sales rep did.
We just closed a new customer using a TikTok video.Prospect was slow to pay… so our sales rep sent them a fun TikTok to follow up on payment. Got it over the line 30 mins after sending. This is sales in 2020. pic.twitter.com/6wCCbz53DB— Phil Jacobson (@phil_jacobson) July 15, 2020
*** When it comes to sales prospecting, it is all about going back to the fundamentals. The 80/20 version is all about sending personalized outreach, clearly communicating your main value prop, and following up in a timely, but respectful manner.
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