Sales prospecting is the process of initiating and developing new business by searching for potential customers , clients , or buyers for your products or services . Sales representatives prospect by finding and engaging with qualified leads to determine if they should move them further through the sales funnel . The aim is to move these prospects through the sales funnel until they become revenuegenerating customers .

A prospect refers to a potential customer . From the flow of prospects , an organization secures continued existence . Typically , businesses will lose 10 % to 15 % of customer base every year due to gradual attrition . Without prospecting , the entire customer base will eventually erode .

An interesting fact : Top-performing salespeople generate nearly 3X more sales meetings via prospecting than those who don ’ t prospect at all .

Businesses that are starting out have little choice but to prospect in order to grow . However , as they become more established , the discipline of prospecting may not be given its deserved attention . This , typically because of managing operations but mainly because it is easier to get repeat business from existing customers as well as crosssell to them .

In addition to the opportunity for conversion , prospecting presents the advantage of gathering data and conducting market research . It takes time before prospects become customers , and even then , a good number will not become customers . However , through prospecting , businesses can determine evolving customer wants and needs , competing offers and how to adapt to changing expectations .

The process of prospecting is one laden with rejection and , if not , requests to wait until the prospect is ready to purchase . For this reason , in addition to having a thick skin , smart businesses will need to allocate resources and develop systems to make prospecting more effective .

The first step to improving prospecting is to acknowledge how imperative it is to getting sales results and treat it accordingly . It is important to add here that , even with outstanding salespersons , without the proper systems in place and working environment , the sales effort will prove futile . Unfortunately , there can be an overemphasis on star salespersons that take away from recognizing existing systems that allow for these salespersons to shine .

Pipelines and funnels are designed to hold a constant stream . Businesses that empower salespersons to regularly prospect and insist on the same grow faster than others . Being in sales or business development , the following steps will hopefully help better your prospecting prowess :

Prospect consistently

Depending on the prospecting goal of the company , one should carve out time each week to prospect . For example , to generate 5 sales a week , and on average close 1 out of 50 prospects , one would have to make 250 calls per week . The salesperson would know best how much time he or she would need every week to make 250 calls . Some insist that prospecting should be done daily but one would have to figure out their own schedule to make the discipline of prospecting work for them . It ’ s a good idea to dedicate at least two hours a week to prospecting .

Turn off the distractions

This is probably a difficult one to implement

26 MAL53 / 23 ISSUE

MAL53:23 | Page 26

Sales Prospecting