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Find More Qualified Propsects
If I could show you a surefire way to instantly improve the quality and quantity of your prospects, would you be interested? The secret to getting more qualified prospects isn't always the frequency of prospecting, if you are making larger sales it's the effectiveness of your prospecting that counts.
The larger the sale you need to make the more time you must invest in it. It pays to find out upfront if your time is wisely invested in a particular prospect or not. There is no point trying to sell to someone who either doesn't want or need your solution or simply cannot purchase it.
The best way to find more profitable customers is to study the customers you already have. Who are your most profitably customers right now? What do they have in common? What are their common needs? What kind of people, personalities and decision makers have bought from you in the past? Who were the largest purchasers for your product and what characteristics define them? Understanding your existing customers in this way will automatically point to the direction you must turn to find more of the same type of customers.
Remember that good prospects, your best prospects are likely to be people who have no time to speak with you and are extremely busy. The best prospects are in businesses that can use your solutions and are also highly prosperous. Therefore you cannot expect these people to have nothing better to do than meet with you. The busier and more resistance you meet from a prospect the higher the likelihood that they will turn out to be a good prospect.
When you approach a prospect you must do so not with the aim of selling them your product but with the aim of qualifying them. At this stage you are not yet aware if they both have a problem that you can solve and they are in a position to buy your solution. Prospects can be uninterested in what you have to offer, unaware that a problem exists, believe that no problem exists when it does and overwhelmed with work responsibilities.
As a salesperson it's your job to find out where your prospect stands before you invest a large amount of time in the sales process with them.
You achieve this in the initial meeting by positioning yourself not as a salesperson but as a consultant who is seeking to understand them, their business and what they need and want. Tell your prospect upfront that the purpose of this initial meeting is not to sell anything. It is simply to find out if there is something you can do for them. This will put your prospect at ease and open them up for discussion with you.
During this meeting you want to lay the foundations for a future relationship and find out if it is worth your time to pursue the relationship any further. You do this by asking questions. You ask questions about the person specifically to build rapport and about the company, industry and that person's work to qualify your prospect. You'll need to develop a fine balance between asking personal and business related questions but in general you should ask two business related questions for every personal one.
This will allow the conversation to be enjoyable for your prospect, for trust between you to be developed and for you to gather the information you need to make an informed decision about pursuing the account or not.
Finally you must ensure that you create an opportunity to return to the discussion if the prospect proves to qualify as a good potential customer. One of the most common mistakes made by salespeople is that they fail to get their next meeting appointment before leaving the prospects office.
It's important not to leave the meeting open ended by promising to call and line up another meeting. Your prospect is a busy person and will in all likelihood be unavailable when you call back. Don't miss this opportunity to get your next appointment.
If you have successfully built rapport with your prospect and qualified that they are a good potential customer than there should be no objection to lining up the next meeting. Again it's important to stress at this point that you believe you have a solution which can tangibly benefit your customer and you want to discuss this further with them.
To find out more about our training programs and services, please contact us (02) 9411 1345 or email us at info@qec.net.au
