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Getting Prospects to Call You

Written by: Nikki Owen

Article Overview: Having a strategy to acquire new customers is vital because customers are lost over time for a variety of reasons. Additionally, if you are serious about sales growth then you’ll want to ensure that your salespeople become competent ‘Hunters’ of new business as well as ‘Farmers’ with their existing accounts.

Getting Prospects to Call You

This process can become so much easier to exploit if you have a prospect pool that you can encourage your sales people to follow up on. Yet, what do you do if that pool dries up?
Imagine having qualified prospects calling you…no, it’s not a dream, and it’s a real possibility if you use this simple, yet extremely powerful process. You’ll need to invest some time to develop the first step, yet, ultimately you could discover the easiest prospecting approach ever created!
The solution is to produce a white paper that reports on the biggest problems facing the prospects and customers within your industry. Then, to position yourself as ‘the credible expert’ you’ll need to write up a range of solutions designed to address these problems. You’ll then be in possession of a compelling document that you can promote for free. If you’ve correctly identified the problems then you’ll discover an avalanche of people (who happen to be great prospects for your sales people) requesting your masterpiece.
This approach is also aligned to the biggest motivational strategy on the planet; people will do anything to avoid pain and then, once they’ve avoided it, they’ll want to gain pleasure. Your report can effectively serve to highlight and reinforce your prospects’ pain then tantalise them with the pleasure they can get by implementing your solutions.
The problems you choose to highlight should be those that your organisation can remedy, so that in essence your report can create buying criteria that ideally only your organisation can satisfy. There are 3 main steps involved in creating this prospecting tool:

Step 1: Your objective is to write a report that highlights and addresses the biggest concerns that your target market are likely to be experiencing. Here are some example titles; The 5 Biggest Pitfalls to Avoid when Making Investments, The 5 Most Dangerous Trends Facing Human Resource Managers Today, 5 Issues that Prevent Profitable Buying.
When writing your report keep it objective and use a variety of quotations from
recognised experts in your market. Where possible, validate your comments with research findings and reference the sources for your information. Ideally your report should be between 6,000 – 12,000 words and focus on approximately 5 main problems. Highlight some suggested solutions that can help the reader overcome the problems.

Step 2: Use direct marketing and/or advertising to promote your report and offer it free upon request. The people that request the report will be your hottest prospects. (Would you want a report on ‘The 5 Biggest Mistakes Obese People Make When Attempting To Lose Weight’ if you were slim and healthy? Of course not, people who want to read this report will be overweight people who have a desire to lose weight!)
Only send out the report once you have got all their contact information. Whether you want the recipient to complete their information online or by phone, it’s important that you have set up a process for capturing their key information. You may want to include a couple of questions that can help you qualify their potential for your organisation’s products/services. Ensure that you send them the report immediately with a covering letter or email, confirming that you are interested in their feedback and will be in touch. Because this is a prospecting activity, it’s vital that you follow-up every request within a couple of days with an acknowledgement email or letter, so that the prospect begins to become familiar with the name of your organisation.

Step 3: Telephone every prospect who received your report and irrespective of whether they have read it or not, (in most instances you’ll soon discover that the majority of people requesting the report will not have had time to read it) ask for an appointment to discuss in more detail how you may help them with resolving some of their own specific issues. Your report will have built
your credibility and because you have already given them value, prospects will be more receptive to meeting you. You can increase the number of appointments made by asking each prospect a couple of questions that reinforce the impact of the issues mentioned in your report. Here are some examples: "What impact would an additional 1% have on your earnings from your investments?" "How do you currently measure the success of your training programs?" "How would an extended period in your suppliers’ payment terms, impact on your cash flow?"

Ultimately, a well researched report will provide you and your team with a lucrative way of generating qualified prospects and convey that you are the experts in your industry.

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Article Tags: avalanche, dangerous trends, dries, human resource managers, investments, masterpiece, objective, pitfalls, pleasure, possession, prospect pool, prospecting tool, prospects, step 1, target market



Related Forum Posts
Re: Email Etiquette - [quote="jvprosperity":24jznj58] The P.S. suggestion is good but it depends on the type of communication (e.g. Autoresponder series verses one off emails to Clients or Prospects)[/quote:24jznj58] Andy, You are right. I was mainly referring to Auto Responder emails. To end a normal email, I attach signatures. Takuya
Simple way to avoid Cold Calling - Gary, A chiropractor I work with hates cold calling (me too!) and he uses a technique to warm people up to using his services - it's so simple! In Sales your dealing with 3 pools of people: 1. Strangers 2. Prospects 3. Returning Customers You need to move people from one pool to the next. We'll concentrate on #1 and #2 as it's most relevant to your question. My Clients does the following (you just have to tailor it to your situation - be creative). My Client (we'll call him Bob) Bob leverages his time and resources to only get people that need his offer (pain relief) to put their hand up. Dealing with Strangers can get expensive and they don't like to be told what to do as they have no trust or relationship built with him. So to get Strangers to put their hands up he writes up an offer with a free report on a particular pain relief - let's say lower back pain (note: he can simply just change lower back pain to neck pain and have a new report). and uses multiple marketing vehicles to promote the Free report - magazines, newspaper, forums, postcards, private clinics etc. The only people picking up this information are the very people Bob would like as customers as they have Lower back pain. Bob's Free report ends with him stating his services and includes a Free in-house Consultation with no obligation. You'd be surprised at how easily Bob converts Strangers into Prospects. Note: They become prospects when they ask for the Free Guide and in exchange provide their contact details. This gives Bob unlimited opportunity to contact them for the Free in-house consultation with no obligation to continue using him. At this stage Bob's ability to close the sale lies in his office providing good customer service, Bob's ability to help the prospect and provide value at the free in-house consultation. Notice, he hasn't had to pick up the phone to COLD-CALL his Stranger pool or his Prospect pool. Hope that example helps to increase your prospecting!
Top sales skills - Qualifying Fast to Avoid Wasting Sales Time Do you chase after your prospects until they tell you yes or no? Do you ever tell your prospects "No", as in "No, I am not going to sell to you"? There are many things in selling that you do not and will not be able to control. The one thing that you do have control over is your time and how you choose to use it. Motivating Prospects Qualifying goes beyond budget, authority, and need. You want to sell to prospects who *want* to buy from you. Finding prospects that need our products usually is not difficult. Finding those who really want our products though can be very hard if we wait for them to come to us. Selling to People Outside Your Comfort Zone Most salespeople who are "people persons", already think that they are good at this. Let me ask you a question. When you last lost a sale, how was your rapport with the key person who decided against you?
I answer my phone - when I worked in the Call Center we had to say "Good XXXXXX, Andy speaking, How may I help you?" imagine saying that over and over again. It kind of sticks with you. It's been a few years now but I've kicked off "How may I help you?" part.
Money I made while in School - While in university I did have a Student Loan (still paying that bugger off) and had a part-time job as a Call Center agent (inbound). *Canada* I also designed websites (outsourced all the work). I just worked on getting new customers, managed the projects to completion and helped create Marketing Plans for my clients (Online and Offline). *Canada* When I was studying the in the States I also made some money as a Part-time Flight instructor. *USA*


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