Thoughtful Thursdays – Ways to find your prospects
A sales topic mostly for those new to the sales profession, but not limited to just newbies, is the one concerning prospects. Specifically how can they be found. Assuming your market research has developed a customer profile, you will have a list of characteristics that describes your target market. This is a solid start, but does not always indicate where they will be found.
Your task is to use the customer profile information to identify and locate your prospects. Previous posts have listed resources that may be helpful. Today’s thought is about gaining insights from the customer profile.
In business to business situations, a particular industry may describe the customer profile. A list of prospects and contact information can be generated from industry association, or industrial directories. Often, the challenge is making contact with a particular individual in the identified business. As you dig deeper, you find there are important profiles within the overall profile that require consideration. The same question applies though, where can I find my prospects? I would look into industry associations the prospect may belong to and determine if there are alternate venues that contact may be made. Are there trade shows or other events they are likely to participate in that you can attend?
For business to consumer businesses, the customer profile is often described using demographic or psychographic characteristics. Use this information and ask yourself questions such as:
- What groups are they likely going to belong to or hang out with?
- Where do they shop?
- What events are they likely to attend?
Insights gained from the information you have are key to finding your prospects faster and beginning the sales cycle.
Good selling,
Richard
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