You might have the strongest sales team in the land, but all of this is for nothing if you don’t get your prospects right from the start.
Fortunately, modern technology has meant that companies are able to filter their prospects much more easily. Of course, that doesn’t mean to say that mistakes don’t creep into the equation; and this is what today’s article is all about.
Shutterstock Licensed Photo – By fizkes
Sales Prospecting Errors to Pay Attention to
Finding great sales leads is not nearly as easy as you would like to think. You need to take a number of steps to ensure your leads are high quality and likely to convert. Understanding the mistakes that frequently cause sales leads to fall through is vital.
We will now mull over some of the biggest mistakes that tend to be made when it comes to prospecting, to ensure you don’t fall into the common traps.
Mistake #1 – You don’t conduct research
This first mistake is probably the worst of the lot you can make. Despite this, countless companies continue to do it. Their idea of prospecting is to collect a list of names and call them up – without looking into the backgrounds of any of them.
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Suffice to say, this tends to be a recipe for disaster. You need to at least know something about your prospects, otherwise you won’t know any problems they have or just how you are going to sell to them. This is why sales prospecting tools are so powerful nowadays; they do a lot of this research legwork for you.
Mistake #2 – You use the same emails and scripts
Firstly, let’s talk about how scripts and template emails are important. Without them, you just wouldn’t be able to scale your sales processes, and this would obviously mean that your numbers drop in the long-term.
However, there is a way to tailor these emails and scripts. They should be used as a guideline only, and you should be able to adapt them based on who you are prospecting. This again leads to the research-factor we touched upon in the first point.
Mistake #3 – You treat all leads equally
The next mistake is all about your prioritization. As we have already discussed, leads come in all shapes and sizes and there needs to be a degree of research behind each one.
Something that you can’t do is group everything together. Let’s not forget that some of these leads are going to convert very easily, while others don’t have a chance whatsoever.
Work through your list of prospects and prioritize them by the ones you think will be the best performing. From this, you can then make decisions and make your prospecting process a whole lot more efficient.
Mistake #4 – You don’t know the conversion point for the prospect
Lastly, let’s talk about conversion points. If you are dealing with inbound prospects, there’s a chance that they have reached you through different means. For example, some might reach you through an online appointment form, while others might have read a whitepaper that your company has prepared. Suffice to say, in the case of the former, they are in a much more advanced position and you should tailor your approach as they are almost ready to convert.
Start Revamping Your Sales Lead Prospecting Process
Finding the best leads can be very challenging. The good news is that you will get a much better ROI from your lead prospecting strategy if you are aware of the mistakes that people make.