Background

Every sales person is busy taking care of current customers, handling service-related issues, and delivering on promises made and literally keeping up with the day to day business of being a sales person.

One of the easiest things to over look is actively prospecting. There doesn't seem to be enough time, we don't know how we're going to be treated when we approach some one new, and we really don't take the time to prepare effectively for the initial call.

Each sales person also knows that a good pipeline of new and potential customers is one of the most rewarding and exciting aspects of selling. In this case, we will identify one prospect and go after it.

Skills needed

Read Step One of The Six Steps to Excellence in Selling.

1. Selection

Select one prospect that doesn't currently buy from you. It could be a previous customer who is inactive, a new department within a current customer or a brand new prospect. Write down the company name below.

2. Preparation

Write down what you know about the company and person if you know who the person is. Information like size of company, predicted usage of our products, who they buy from now, customers we sell who are similar to this company and other useful information is what we're looking for.

3. Action

Write down what you will take with you (if a face to face approach) and what you will say on this initial contact. Make sure that your words are fresh and worth listening to and that a benefit to the prospect is made clear. What names would you drop? What similar customers would you mention? What potential problems might you be able to solve?

4. Results

What happened? Did it work out as you intended? Did you find a good prospect? Write it down.