Prospecting is oftentimes a daunting term within sales. Most people equate prospecting to cold calling, cold emailing, and a slew of unsolicited touchpoints. They are not wrong; prospecting often feels like the uncomfortable annoyance of leads you so desperately want to convert into opportunities. The value of prospecting is that these companies would never know the options they have without an unsolicited conversation.
While cold calls and cold emails are often considered “annoying,” getting a call from a company like ReluTech actually helps so much more than it hurts. One of my top customers was originally contacted via a cold call. After 10+ calls and emails going unanswered, I was finally able to get him on the phone. We talked about his hardware environment and his current maintenance strategy, and found that he was severely overpaying to the OEMs. He switched his server and storage environments over to ReluTech’s maintenance amidst the COVID-19 crisis and because of that, he was able to free up funds to keep members of his team employed. A single 10 minute, unsolicited conversation saved him tens of thousands of dollars.
Now, I’m going to share a few tips on how to go about prospecting. The first thing you need to become comfortable with when prospecting is the fact that you are calling to help your leads. When you approach prospecting with that attitude, the tone of your conversations change. Many people will not be interested, sometimes they won’t even let you pitch, but if you can convince at least one person a day that you can help them, it is all worth it.
The second tip I can give is to mix up your prospecting attempts. Most salespeople believe cold calls and cold emails are the only means of contact, but they are wrong. Utilize networks like LinkedIn, to connect with your lead and learn more about what they do and what their business is doing. This will result in much more meaningful conversations.
The third tip I can give is to stop asking for things! Switch up your emailing strategy, instead of asking for them to buy your product or switch over their maintenance provider, ask them about how their company is doing. Look up their company name and find a recent news article to ask them about. This opens up a line of communication outside of the ones they get bombarded with daily.
Prospecting is truly one of the most difficult aspects of a salesperson. With the right attitude and outreach strategy, you can convert more leads into opportunities and help make your contact look like a hero to their supervisor.
