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:11. 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 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 www.telesalesproducts.com
Email: jenny@telesalestraining.com.au
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! www.telesalesproducts.com
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How To Find Prospects To Call - To learn more about this author, visit Jenny Cartwright's Website.
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