There's a lot that goes into prospecting. Before you even pick up the phone or begin to write that email, you often have to do quite a bit of research to even find your contact person. No wonder people get bogged down by prospecting!
Today and tomorrow sales trainer Kendra Lee will shares some excellent tools she's found that make prospecting quite a bit easier. And really, who doesn't want that?
"You can use these tools to do everything from identifying who your best-odds prospects are to deducing why they'd want to speak with you, writing a powerful email, and ultimately attracting them to you," says Lee. "Here are some of my favorites."
1. Identify the who. Once you know the profile of the types of contacts and companies you want to approach, use Zoominfo.com, NetProspex.com, Insideview.com, Stratascope.com or Hoovers.com to search and get the names of the best contacts to talk to. Often you can find contact names by title and department taking some of the guesswork out of who to approach.
2. Delve in. Go a step further and do some research for the contacts you've uncovered on those same sites. What have they written? Where have they been quoted? You can quickly get a feel for what's top of mind with them and where their passions lie.
Research their companies to identify business issues that will grab their attention. Are their inventory turn times significantly higher than their competitors? Is their aged accounts receivable out of alignment for their industry?
Use this information to craft your grabber value proposition for phone calls and emails. Use it to write blogs or articles on similar topics. The articles and blog posts will attract their attention and peak their interest in you. Comment about your ideas on social networks making you more visible.
3. Secure contact info. Start with these same sites to find the most current contact information for your target prospects. Jigsaw.com and NetProspex.com are maintained by people like you and me, so they've often got very current information including valuable email addresses. While you're there, add a few contacts of your own and earn points for free contact information downloads.
4. Find elusive email addresses. If you still can't find an email address here's a trick to try. From your search engine type "@their website domain" and it'll pull up anywhere on the web where email addresses for that domain appear. Now you'll have the email protocol for that company and can more effectively guess your contact's email address. You can also use LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and other social networks to send direct messages within their networks. These systems break past your prospects' email delete barriers when your direct emails do not.
Check back in tomorrow for more great, time-saving tips from Kendra Lee!
Kendra Lee is a top IT Seller, Prospect Attraction Expert and author of the award winning book "Selling Against the Goal" and president of KLA Group. Specializing in the IT industry, KLA Group works with companies to break in and exceed revenue objectives in the Small and Midmarket Business (SMB) segment. Ms. Lee is a frequent speaker at national sales meetings and association events. To find out more about the author, read her latest articles, or to subscribe to her newsletter visit www.klagroup.com or call +1 303.773.1285.
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