Developing a Strategic Prospecting Plan

Developing a Strategic Prospecting Plan

Jennifer Harman, a graduate from the state university, was hired as a sales representative for the Logistics Company. The Logistics Company is a transportation brokerage business that connects other companies together that need products shipped with trucking companies to carry their shipments. After her initial training session, Jennifer was given a couple of customers that the company previously had and a short list of leads to get her started. She started by serving the shipment needs of the existing customers. This boosted her confidence level a bit, she needs to start prospecting and try to find what sales opportunities work best for her. The Logistics Company provides a never-ending list of leads that can be used by every salesperson. Once one salesperson uses a lead, it cannot be used a second time. Jennifer started her prospecting by contacting these leads. Jennifer has been calling many of these potential customers each day, but hasn’t had very good luck with getting any business. She feels as if she is wasting lots of time on leads that aren’t good opportunities for a sale. The leads that her company provides aren’t qualified in any way and her training program focused on cold calling as the basic prospecting method. Jennifer had taken a professional selling class in college and remembered that there was a chapter that discussed prospecting and emphasized on the need to follow the strategic prospecting process to find the best sales opportunities. She found her textbook from the class and went to the prospecting chapter, and decided to create her own strategic plan.

1. What methods should Jennifer use to generate sales leads beyond those provided by her company?

• Some methods that Jennifer should use to generate sales leads are cold canvassing, networking, and published sources. Cold canvassing occurs when salespeople contact a sales lead unannounced with little if any information about the lead. Salespeople can use various types of networking as effective methods for prospecting. Many salespeople join civic and professional organizations, country clubs, or fraternal organizations, and these memberships provide the opportunity for them to build relationships with other members. Published sources like directories offer an inexpensive, convenient means of identifying leads.

1. How should Jennifer qualify the leads provided by her company and those she generates herself? What is the profile of an ideal prospect?

• Jennifer should qualify her leads by searching, collecting, analyzing, and using various types of screening procedures to determine if the sales lead is really a good sales prospect. (pg. 112.) The profile of an ideal prospect is the characteristics of a firm’s best customers or the perfect customer. Jennifer’s ideal prospect would be those that need products shipped with trucking firms to carry the shipments.

1. How should Jennifer prioritize her qualified prospects?

• The most productive salespeople prioritize their sales prospects to ensure that they spend most of their time on the best opportunities. Jennifer should identify one or more criteria, evaluate sales prospects against these criteria, and either rank all of the sales prospects based on this evaluation or place the sales prospects into A, B, and C categories, with A sales prospects being the best sales opportunities (pg. 113.)

1. What information should Jennifer collect to prepare for sales dialogue with a prospect?

• Preparing for sales dialogue is the final step in the strategic prospecting process. The more information a salesperson has about a prospect, the better chance a salesperson has to make a sale. So, gathering relevant information is an ongoing activity throughout the trust-based sales process, but very important prior to the initial sales dialogue with a prospect. First, Jennifer will need basic information about the prospect. There is usually lots of basic information about the prospective buyer and company that can be obtained prior to the initial sales dialogue. The basic information about the buyer helps the salesperson understand the buyer from a personal perspective. Next, she will need information about the selling situation. Some specific types of selling situation information are the type of purchase, current supplier, the buying process, and the available budget. Most of this information helps the salesperson understand all aspects of the prospect’s buying process. The last thing she needs to collect is sources of information. The use of social media as a valuable information source for salespeople has been increasing in recent years (pg. 120-122.)

1. Jennifer used LinkedIn during college and wants to employ it in her strategic prospecting process. How can she best use LinkedIn?

• Social Media platforms make it really easy to create and publish content on topics your sales prospects are interested in learning more about (conversedigital.com.) LinkedIn and other social media sites have been used in gathering sources of information and making prospects information available to other salespeople via social media (pg. 122.) LinkedIn lets you create a list of suspects according to the criteria you choose. When someone meets this criteria, they will be added to your list (groovedigitalmarketing.com)

Works Cited

Ingram. LaForge. Avila. Schwepker. Williams. Sell. Student Edition: 4.

http://groovedigitalmarketing.com/linkedin-prospecting/. 2015.

Martin, T. 3 Ways to Use Social For Better B2B Sales & Lead Generation.

http://www.conversedigital.com/social-selling-posts/social-media-b2b-sales-prospecting.