Sales prospecting is an essential part of the sales process. It helps you make sure that every lead you spend time and effort on is a good fit for your products or services. In this article, we'll explain the importance of sales prospecting and give you a guide on how to use it in your company.
Only by understanding the specifics of prospecting, will you be able to see amazing results.
What is sales prospecting?
Sales prospecting is the process of finding the best possible customers to win more deals and conquer new markets. It is used to expand your existing customer base by reaching out to leads and building relationships with the goal of turning them into customers.
This process is mostly done through email marketing, social media, networking events and more. Prospecting helps you better understand your customers and what their customer journey looks like.
The process of deciding which leads are prospects will look different from company to company. Some even outsource this process to a lead gen agency. But don't worry, our guide can be used for many different industries.
The importance of sales prospecting
Sales prospecting is essential for any sales team wanting to grow its business. It helps you identify customers that have a real need for your solution. Since they are already aware of their pain points and issues, targeting them can speed up your sales cycle.
Focusing on people that are already searching for a solution similar to yours is far more effective than trying to convert people who aren't even aware of their problems. If your sales strategy is only focused on the top of the funnel people, you'll lose out on a lot of conversion opportunities.
Research shows that 82% of buyers accept meetings when a salesperson reaches out first. A big reason for this is that people who are looking for a specific product or service will be more willing to jump on a sales call than the ones that are still cold leads.
Quality over quantity
However, if you want to take advantage of these numbers, you need to improve the quality of your sales meetings. If you waste people's time by talking about your company, instead of focusing on personalized benefits and features they will love, you won't increase your conversion rate.
That's why it's important to prepare for your sales meetings. You need to research your prospects and find out how to customize your pitch to them. We'll focus more on this in a later chapter.
The difference between leads and prospects
A lead is a person who may become a client after a lot of effort and time.
On the other hand, a prospect is a person you've qualified as one that is more likely to purchase from your business.
Understanding leads
While leads expressed some type of interest in your company, products or services, they still need to be engaged and informed. This is because they fall into the early stages of your sales pipeline.
They are usually engaged with helpful and informative blogs, how-to videos, case studies and more.
Understanding prospects
Prospects are leads you've decided are more worth spending time and effort trying to convert. That is because they showed a higher level of interest, and possibly reached out to you to find out more about your products and services.
They don't need a lot of convincing, since they are very likely to buy. Simply answer their questions and deal with any objections.
Automate your sales prospecting
If you want to speed up your sales process, you will need to automate parts of it. While we believe that people buy from people and would never tell you to completely automate your sales process, there are parts you can speed up with reliable software.
Wonit, an AI platform that builds personalized proposals in minutes using conversational AI. Instead of spending hours with complicated proposal software, you'll be able to create stunning web-based proposals that you can track and get signed.
Save time with AI
You'll be able to design your proposal with dead-simple drag and drop blocks or by having a natural conversation with AI. Simply describe your project and get professional proposals in minutes, not hours.
Since we're so focused on the proposal process, it's easy to see why you would let us take care of your proposal structure and other elements. This leaves you with more time to focus on shaping your offer and closing deals.
Quick signatures and payments
All of our proposals come with a built-in e-signature option which speeds up your approval process. No one has to print out or scan documents. The only thing your client needs to do is sign digitally and it will become legally binding.
Another great feature you'll love is the payment integration. It allows your clients to pay directly through Stripe payment links in the proposal itself. After they e-sign, they can click "Pay now" and complete the transaction immediately.
The importance of the follow-up process
Since prospects are already interested in your solution and are likely to buy, you don't want to ruin your chances by not following up.
When using Wonit, you can do this very easily through our advanced analytics. They show you when your proposal was opened, viewed, and signed. You also get block-by-block analytics that show how much time the reader spent on each section.
Know when to reach out
This will inform your follow-up process because you'll know exactly when to reach out and what your approach should be. There is no need to message them with specifics on your offer if they still haven't opened your document.
Knowing that they've read your proposal, got to the pricing section and haven't responded yet, you can craft a great email. Outline how you helped previous clients reach their goals. Send a short case study that shows how quickly you helped your client reach ROI.
That will help convince your new clients to agree to your proposal.
Learn how to prioritize your prospects
To be successful in your sales prospecting, you need to learn how to prioritize your prospects. That way, you can make sure that you're focusing on the right clients.
Create a grading system
The process of prioritizing your prospects can be quite easy. If you already have an amazing understanding of your target audience and previous clients, you'll know exactly who to focus on.
Create a map of your leads and grade each one on how likely they are to convert. Once you have a list of potential clients who are more likely to buy from you, share your findings with the team.
They can give you input and together you can come to a final list of prospects.
Key factors to consider
The factors you should focus on while grading leads should be:
The size of the company
Previous communication
Market changes
Timing
Budget availability
There will always be surprises along the way, so make sure to update your list regularly and include new data.
The importance of a personalized approach
If you approach your prospects with a universal message, without any type of personalization, you won't reach your full potential.
Do your research
You need to set time aside to research your prospects and customize your approach to their needs and wants. Don't be afraid to do some social media research. Find out what the company's values are and how to win them over.
Are they focused on the environment? Do they work with non-profits? Do they offer scholarships? Find an angle to quickly stand out and show the prospect that you've done your research.
Make sure to research their competitors as well. Understanding your prospects' standing in the market will help you shape your sales pitch. You will know which benefits to focus on and how to present your solution.
Use your connections
It's not a bad idea to look for mutual connections and ask for a referral. That way, your potential clients will have more confidence in their choice to meet you.
Personalizing your approach will help you relate to your clients. 80% of consumers say that they would rather buy from a company that provides a personalized buying experience. This shows why investing in such an approach is worthwhile.
Let AI do the heavy lifting
This is where Wonit truly shines. If you've imported your CRM data into Wonit, you can create highly personalized proposals in seconds. Simply tell the AI "create a proposal for @hubspot:DealName" and it will fetch all important info and interactions from your CRM to build a fully customized proposal for that specific prospect.
You can also import your company documents, website links, and other details to create a knowledge base. Then when creating a new proposal, provide specific information about the prospect like an RFP or study you did on them. Let AI create a beautiful and fully personalized web proposal that closes leads faster.
Craft the perfect pitch
Now that we covered the importance of personalization, let's explain how to craft your sales pitch. If we could give you one piece of advice on how to create a great sales pitch, it would be to focus on benefits. Don't put too much focus on the features of your products and services.
Benefits over features
To put it simply, your potential customers won't care about features. They want to understand how your solution can help them specifically.
We're not saying that you should completely avoid talking about your features. You can overcome objections by comparing your solution to your competitors. If you offer specific features at all price points or have unique features, make sure to mention that.
However, the main points of your sales pitch should be the benefits.
Give real examples
For example, if you're selling website development, you should focus your pitch on how much visibility your client will get from a new website and how they can increase sales and quickly see ROI.
Talk about yourself last
Another tip we would like to share with you is to carefully consider when you'll talk about yourself and your company.
Put yourself in your client's shoes. Would you want to sit through a presentation of a company's history, values, previous work and more? Probably not.
Your clients will expect your presentation to be focused on them. People are still making their potential clients listen to a presentation about why they're the perfect company for the job, without focusing on the client and the issue at hand.
If you really want to mention your company in the sales pitch, make sure it's not at the start of it. Otherwise, you'll lose the attention of your listeners right away.
Key takeaways
Sales prospecting can help you sell more and increase your revenue, as long as you know how to do it correctly.
Remember, it all starts with understanding your audience and who would be more likely to buy from your company. If you don't have deep knowledge of your audience, you won't be able to successfully qualify your prospects.
Once you do all the groundwork, you will see that qualifying your prospect will come easy to you. Just make sure everyone in your team is on board with your decisions.
Speed up your prospecting with Wonit
If you're looking for a way to speed up your sales prospecting, join the waitlist for early access to Wonit. Create stunning, personalized proposals in minutes instead of hours with AI-powered proposal generation, advanced analytics, and built-in e-signatures.
With Wonit's conversational AI, you can create professional proposals as easily as having a conversation. Track engagement, get real-time notifications when prospects view your proposals, and close deals faster than ever before. Join our waitlist today and be among the first to experience the future of proposal creation.