I Use These Prospecting Tips and My Sales Doubled!

In my previous post, I've mentioned that prospecting is very important in sales and it's the first sales skill you have to master. Now, I'm going to share some tips of how to execute high-result prospecting.

1. Target only to qualified prospects.
Many salespeople try to sell to everyone or every company. It's a great sin in sales. As the result, you may expect a lot of rejections, sales slump, frustration, difficult appointments, and so on.

If you want to sell more with less depression, rejection, and frustration, you should focus only on your qualified prospects. A professional salesperson selling luxurious cars won't waste their time persuading the factory workers to buy the cars. They target only to the executives with six-digit income.

In my early career selling restaurant software, I approached all restaurants I could find on the streets, at malls or some commercial estates. I repeatedly heard the words of rejections as most of them had already implemented the software from another vendor. One day, I met a restaurant manager who advised me to focus only on opening-soon restaurants to sell my software. Since then, I'd increased my sales significantly.

2. Make a profile or criteria of your qualified prospects.
Do you make a list of criteria of your qualified prospects? This is very useful to help you determine whether a prospect is qualified or not.

What are the criteria of qualified prospects? It depends on the products you sell, the price, the segmentation, your competitors, your company, and other related factors. In my case (selling restaurant software), the profile of my qualified prospects is like this:

- Opening soon restaurants --> they surely need software to manage the operational
- Mid-size restaurants or above --> small restaurants have more resistance to use software
- The owner is IT-minded --> some restaurant owners refuse to use software because they think it's difficult to operate.

In general, a qualified prospect must fulfill at least these three criteria: need, urgency, and capability to buy. If one of them doesn't exist, it's likely the prospect will not buy.

You can start making your own profile and use it to help you decide if a prospect is qualified. This can save a lot of your sales efforts and time. Ask yourself what kind of prospects in your business field that can be classified as your qualified prospects.

3. Find the clues of "I-Want-to-Buy-Now" prospects
Prospects needing the type of product you sell is the no. 1 prospect you have to pursue. They need your product, they're ready to spend their money, and they need it NOW. The question is how to find such prospects.

Many times, there are clues of prospects-in-need if you are aware and alert. For example, if you sell CCTV camera, the clues of your qualified prospects are the offices or houses that are recently broken in. You can find the clues from newspaper, internet, business journal, daily conversation with people around you, current issues, etc.

While ago, I read a sales article of a sales consultant who uses newspaper as her source of finding new qualified prospects. News like company mergers, sales drop, product launching, are good "clues" for her to sell her service.

Opportunity might appear anywhere unexpectedly; we just need to open our eyes.