Corporate Prospecting
Prospecting isn’t as frightening as you would think. In corporate sales I like to teach people 3 things.
Establish the key players
When you are prospecting find out who makes the decisions. Start at the top and work your way down. Is it a VP, an owner a CEO or high level manager? Have them release the names of the people in the trenches to you. You won't step on anyone toes and people will tend to listen when you are able to name drop. You can say, “Victor Barns suggested I speak with you." It's important to introduce yourself to a high level person so that there aren’t any surprises down the road when the company starts doing business with you. They’ll remember your phone call to them.
Which department takes care of buying your products? You could be dealing with multiple departments. For example in Information Technology you could be dealing with the Purchasing Department and the IT Dept. There are often many players involved. It could be 3-5 people deep, depending on how large the company is and what you're selling. It is very crucial to find out who the key decision maker is? You can waste a lot of time prospecting the wrong person.
Determine the potential
YOU will get completely frustrated and agonize over why people aren’t buying when in fact----they don’t buy anything-Ever. You can’t sell ice to Eskimos.
You absolutely must determine the potential of the account at the beginning. In IT for example, we measured the potential of the account by how many pc’s they had? This gave us a good indication of their budget. I'm not a big fan of coming right out and asking them what their budget is. Why? If it’s confidential, you’ve offended them by asking and the conversation goes sideways. It’s kind of like someone asking you how much money you make. You don’t want to tell them but you don’t know how to tell them you don’t want to tell them.
There are other creative ways of determining the potential. Use their past history for example. Do they buy name brands? How old are their products now? Who are they buying from? How committed are they to maintaining and updating products or services?
In corporate sales this can be tricky. If you're doing your job properly and making the calls you will always here “The budgets are cut”, “We aren’t buying too much these days; things are pretty quiet." If I had a dollar for every time I heard that, I wouldn’t have to work.
They won’t share too much information with you in the beginning until some trust is established. They don’t even know who you are. Is it fair we ask them to divulge all their information to us on the first call? That’s your job to figure it out. Open ended questions tend to yield better answers and help disarm a potential client. Questions that is conversational. For example......"What are you doing with your printers?" "Did you decide on whether you were going to upgrade this year?" "Do you generally purchase from one supplier or do you have a few you like to use?"
Building the relationship
In order to build a client relationship you have to establish a presence in the account. Be persistent and cultivate it. It’s like planting seeds. You water them, fertilize the soil, and nurture those seeds so that the plant becomes healthy and strong.
It’s the same thing with an account. You’re making follow up calls, staying in touch, offering your services, thanking them for the opportunity, sending some information or free stuff. I sent golf balls once to someone while relentlessly pursuing him. I called to follow up those golf balls. It was the VP of Finance at CTV. He thanked me and graciously offered me a name of someone to call at CTV and it turned out to be my largest AND most fruitful account, all because of 3 golf balls.
What I can tell you about Sales with absolute certainty is that things change. Be persistent. Stay on them. They may not need you today. But NO means maybe...NO means not right now, not this month.
I heard NO from my very best clients while I was still prospecting them. If you can promote your products and services with confidence that what you are offering is of value to them, THEN when the players change or their current level of service goes down or someone drops the ball you’re the first person they will call. You have persistently and politely pursued their business.
Happy selling,
Carrie Wynne
Establish the key players
When you are prospecting find out who makes the decisions. Start at the top and work your way down. Is it a VP, an owner a CEO or high level manager? Have them release the names of the people in the trenches to you. You won't step on anyone toes and people will tend to listen when you are able to name drop. You can say, “Victor Barns suggested I speak with you." It's important to introduce yourself to a high level person so that there aren’t any surprises down the road when the company starts doing business with you. They’ll remember your phone call to them.
Which department takes care of buying your products? You could be dealing with multiple departments. For example in Information Technology you could be dealing with the Purchasing Department and the IT Dept. There are often many players involved. It could be 3-5 people deep, depending on how large the company is and what you're selling. It is very crucial to find out who the key decision maker is? You can waste a lot of time prospecting the wrong person.
Determine the potential
YOU will get completely frustrated and agonize over why people aren’t buying when in fact----they don’t buy anything-Ever. You can’t sell ice to Eskimos.
You absolutely must determine the potential of the account at the beginning. In IT for example, we measured the potential of the account by how many pc’s they had? This gave us a good indication of their budget. I'm not a big fan of coming right out and asking them what their budget is. Why? If it’s confidential, you’ve offended them by asking and the conversation goes sideways. It’s kind of like someone asking you how much money you make. You don’t want to tell them but you don’t know how to tell them you don’t want to tell them.
There are other creative ways of determining the potential. Use their past history for example. Do they buy name brands? How old are their products now? Who are they buying from? How committed are they to maintaining and updating products or services?
In corporate sales this can be tricky. If you're doing your job properly and making the calls you will always here “The budgets are cut”, “We aren’t buying too much these days; things are pretty quiet." If I had a dollar for every time I heard that, I wouldn’t have to work.
They won’t share too much information with you in the beginning until some trust is established. They don’t even know who you are. Is it fair we ask them to divulge all their information to us on the first call? That’s your job to figure it out. Open ended questions tend to yield better answers and help disarm a potential client. Questions that is conversational. For example......"What are you doing with your printers?" "Did you decide on whether you were going to upgrade this year?" "Do you generally purchase from one supplier or do you have a few you like to use?"
Building the relationship
In order to build a client relationship you have to establish a presence in the account. Be persistent and cultivate it. It’s like planting seeds. You water them, fertilize the soil, and nurture those seeds so that the plant becomes healthy and strong.
It’s the same thing with an account. You’re making follow up calls, staying in touch, offering your services, thanking them for the opportunity, sending some information or free stuff. I sent golf balls once to someone while relentlessly pursuing him. I called to follow up those golf balls. It was the VP of Finance at CTV. He thanked me and graciously offered me a name of someone to call at CTV and it turned out to be my largest AND most fruitful account, all because of 3 golf balls.
What I can tell you about Sales with absolute certainty is that things change. Be persistent. Stay on them. They may not need you today. But NO means maybe...NO means not right now, not this month.
I heard NO from my very best clients while I was still prospecting them. If you can promote your products and services with confidence that what you are offering is of value to them, THEN when the players change or their current level of service goes down or someone drops the ball you’re the first person they will call. You have persistently and politely pursued their business.
Happy selling,
Carrie Wynne