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How To Find Prospects To Call

Written by: Jenny Cartwright

Article Overview: Even though you are busy it is important to keep filling the pipeline with potential customers/prospects. So who are you going to call and how do you find these people? The answers are to be found in the article below.

How To Find Prospects To Call

How To Find Prospects To Call

Remember 80% of your current business comes from 20% of your existing customers so it is important to call existing customers on a regular basis.

However, as you know in sales, it is important to keep filling the pipeline with potential customers (i.e. prospects). Cold calling is therefore vital to practice in order to stay in business.

Think about it, if everyone in your company learnt how to do 10 cold calls a day and they connected with 4 people, how big could your business grow? They could do that at the beginning of the day, get their 4 prospects and then cold calling would be over for the day.

"Yes, but where do I find leads?" I hear you cry.
"Who can I call?"

The most important factor in telemarketing is to have a really good list of people to call that you can build a relationship with over time.

Here are some ideas:-
1. Know exactly who you want to target. For example, if you are in recruitment and want to supply people to banks or tele- communications companies. Simply go to http://www.yellowpagesonline.com, look under "banks" and "telecommunications" and cut and paste all the company names and telephone numbers into your own database. Call the company and ask for the IT Manager or the HR Manager (capture the name of the person from the receptionist first of course).

2. Look in the journals of the industries you target for influential people being written about. Find these people's contact details, call them to congratulate them on their article and ask them to recommend people you could call.

3. Look in newspapers and magazines for people advertising for what you can offer.

4. Buy lists from List Companies like The List Bank and Impact Lists. They keep up to date lists of professional people like Sales Managers, Managing Directors, Mortgage Brokers, Accountants, Real Estate Managers, Advertising Managers etc. They can split them into companies under 10 employees, over 50 employees etc. and into areas.

5. Better still create your own list . The quickest way I know to do this, is to have a landing page on your website offering the visitor something free. To get the free gift, they have to fill in their email and telephone no. As an example have a look at www.salescopy.com. If your business does not suit something so brash, then see how I have done the same thing more subtly on my home page www.telesalestraining.com.au with the "subscribe for free tips" and the "Free Report". Every day more and more people subscribe and I have more people I can be of service to. It is very exciting.

6. Attend tradeshows and offer a prize so that everyone who passes by puts their card in your raffle box. Better still get them to fill out a questionnaire to find out their needs in relation to your products or service. In return they can go in the draw for a prize. You then know whether they are potential prospects who are worth telemarketing after the event.

7. Look for joint venture partners. By that I mean, look for companies who have products or services that are complementary to yours. You could offer to do a mail out to your customers for them and they can do a mail out to their customers for you. You then share the profits and get leads for each other.

8. Think of companies who supply you with products and services with whom you might be able to do joint ventures. Your printer must have a good list of clients or your stationery supplier. Alternatively, ask them for referrals to others too. They must know at least 10 people suitable for your business.

9. Place an advertisement in a journal or magazine that targets your market offering something FREE and give a phone number. Wait for the calls to come rolling in if the offer is good but for goodness sake, make sure there is someone there to answer the calls, that they are going to answer the phone well and that they have been trained to convert incoming calls into sales. I heard about someone who called from an advert and got an answer-phone message which said, "Obviously I am not here, you know what to do!" Needless to say he wasted his advertising because no-one would buy from a person with such an unprofessional message.

10. Post an article about your product or service on www.blogger.com. Once you get known, you will start to get leads.




Jenny Cartwright –Telemarketing Award Winner and Telesales Trainer/Speaker/Author
Sales and Telesales Solutions


Tel. 612 9427 3479
Fax. 612 9418 9069


E-Book – “How to Make A Fortune Selling on the Phone"- a proven step by step formula to increase sales, appointments and leads by 30% – 100% - guaranteed!

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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!
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