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Part Ten - Prospecting for More Sales

Written by: Lawrence Atkinson

Article Overview: The last installment of a Ten Part Series. In this series, we explore all the different avenues of prospecting necessary for a business to succeed. Think of your business as a a beautiful garden, and then consider all the things you need to do to keep that garden beautiful and growing, rather than dreary, dead or decaying. Need help with Prospecting? Feel free to get in touch with us via our website.

Part Ten - Prospecting for More Sales

Summary

Growth in sales is essential. If you are not growing then you must be dying - that’s a fact of life. You need to develop a positive programme to seek out and generate new business opportunities. Pursue an effective telemarketing technique to develop new prospects.

Your products and services are good - the problem is where are your buyers? It is a matter of making sure that when the time to buy comes, prospects include you in the people they turn to.

Much of your business will come from referrals so you have to maximise the number of referrals to your business. You need to use your personal network so that as many people as possible know who you are, what you sell and where to find you.

You need to adopt a pre-call planning technique to save you both time and money. Do your homework and put yourself in control right at the start of the sales cycle.

Some customers may just want to walk in and make a purchase. You need to be as visible as possible to ensure it's your business that they walk into. This means advertising - not the big dollar spend in the media, but advertising yourself - you are the business. It means working on your company image. It means building a reputation for reliability and efficiency, and making sure you give the best after-sales service.

You cannot afford to sit back and wait for the sales to roll in, even if your reputation is impeccable and you have made yourself visible in the market place. You have to go out into the business world to make people aware of you and what you do.

Carefully identify selling possibilities, and then engage in pre-call planning and low-key awareness, making appointments with the people who make decisions about what is to be bought.

If you are personally known to the customer your chances of making the sale are greater. If your previous contact has left a favourable impression, your chances are even better. If you are known and trusted in the broader market place, you are really in there with a great chance of actually making the sale. The idea is to stop them ever getting as far as the internet or the yellow pages.

Here is a simple “Triple A” guide to business growth:

Awareness

The potential buyer has to know who you are and what you sell.

Accessibility
You have to be easy to find and easy to deal with. Some people are easy to find and hard to do business with. This does not mean, however, that you have to give away the shop either!

Approval

The approval of the individual buyer and the business community at large is the surest basis for continued growth. A good reputation is your most valuable asset.

Your business is like a garden. You have to keep working on it to make it grow. Sheer hard work is not enough. Good planning is essential if it's going to be really successful.

Good prospecting!

Related Articles
  Sales Prospecting Techniques
  Sales Prospecting for Sales Results
  Sales Prospecting
  Prospecting it is simple only DOING counts
  Sales Management, Prospecting, and a Sense of Urgency©

Article Tags: appointments, business world, company image, decisions, efficiency, fact of life, favourable impression, homework, new business opportunities, personal network, possibilities, prospects, referrals, reliability, reputation, telemarketing technique, time and money



Related Forum Posts
Prime Means of Selling - Prospecting and Selling aren't the same. Prospecting is finding the few within a target group who are prime candidates for your service. I don't think everyone will agree on what "prime" means but I'd say if the prospects actively want what you're offering and have the ability to pay for what you're offering then they qualify as "prime".
Online Sales and Marketing vs Traditional - Hi Evan, I am noticing that many of the posts in the Sales/Marketing section deal with online marketing, SEM and and SEO and Affiliates. I was wondering if it might be a good idea to separate that section into two; 1) Online Sales and Marketing; 2) Traditional Sales and Marketing
Re: Online Sales and Marketing vs Traditional - [quote="ltrahan":31w9r2iz]Hi Evan, I am noticing that many of the posts in the Sales/Marketing section deal with online marketing, SEM and and SEO and Affiliates. I was wondering if it might be a good idea to separate that section into two; 1) Online Sales and Marketing; 2) Traditional Sales and Marketing[/quote:31w9r2iz] I second the request...
Patent information - I'm also interested in Part 2. Thanks.
Patent Process - Interesting to hear your experiences with the patent process - what's Part 2?


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