Sales Prospecting: Tips and Techniques for a Valuable Pipeline

Maintaining a healthy sales pipeline hinges on effective sales prospecting

From moving deals along smoothly to picking out dead leads, managing every single opportunity that goes through your sales process is a big job, accompanied with plenty of potential issues. However, the real problem arises when sales reps don’t have enough qualified opportunities to work with.

The only way to avoid this productivity killer is by implementing a sales prospecting strategy and using sales intelligence software.

The purpose of prospecting is to fuel your sales pipeline and provide reps with valuable opportunities to help them close deals. Once your company’s conversion rate is taken into account, the initial number of prospects that enter the pipeline will diminish, so it’s important to identify as many potential customers as possible.

However, you don’t want to fill your pipeline with just anybody. One of the most crucial parts of sales prospecting is knowing who to reach out to.

To equip your sales reps with actual opportunities, you need to start by targeting the right buyers. It’s a lot more beneficial for businesses to have a short list of qualified potential buyers than a long list of people who have no need for their solution.

Prospect vs. lead

Because they both represent a person before they become a customer, leads and prospects are often confused for one another. Let’s get everything in order before we continue.

A prospect is a person, or even a business, who fits a seller’s ideal customer profile but has not yet expressed any interest in buying their solution. A lead, on the other hand, is someone who might have shown interest in your business but is not yet considered a qualified buyer.

It’s all about whether or not the person is qualified. If someone is fit to buy your solution, you can consider them a prospect or a prospective buyer. However, if you haven’t yet determined if they are a suitable candidate to become a customer, they keep the lead status.

The best way to explain the difference between a lead and a prospect is through the sales pipeline.

At the start of the sales process, a rep is presented with a certain number of leads. These leads are people who have given their contact information to the business in some way, such as subscribing to a newsletter or attending an event.

With that lead’s contact information, a rep will reach out and undergo the lead qualification process, in which they ask questions to help determine whether or not that person has a good chance of becoming a customer.

If the lead doesn’t fit the ideal customer persona, they are considered a dead lead and are no longer pursued. However, if they fit the criteria, they become a prospect.

Sales prospecting techniques

Sales prospecting requires contacting that list of leads to determine if they would be a good candidate for buying your business solution. Reps will implement a couple of common prospecting techniques in sales as they go through the process.

Before we discuss them, it’s important to note that you shouldn’t limit your business to just one. Implementing all of these sales prospecting techniques will only open more communication channels with potential customers.

Cold calling

Cold calling is a prospecting activity in which reps reach out to potential customers using the phone. Before the phone call, the rep and prospect had no contact with each other. During the cold call, reps will ask questions to help them determine if the person should be considered a prospect or a dead lead.

Businesses use cold calling because it is fast and controllable. Once an effective script is found, every rep can use it moving forward.

Cold emailing

Similar to cold calling, cold emailing is when a rep reaches out to someone with which they have had no previous contact. This time, it happens over email. These emails are also often scripted. All the rep has to do is personalize it a little bit, and it can be sent on its way.

Sometimes businesses will even implement a cold email series, where the different emails request varying information regarding a prospect’s buying ability and status.

Social media

We live in the age of social media, and it’s a missed opportunity for businesses that aren’t using it for their prospecting efforts. Social prospecting is when businesses use their various social media platforms to find and interact with prospects.

This technique is simply a different approach to prospecting. In traditional prospecting, someone might use their email to download an asset you offer on your site. With that email, you would reach out to them by phone or email. Social prospecting finds its leads and their contact information from its list of followers, and the outreach is done within those various platforms. 

Referrals

This strategy taps into existing customer relationships to generate new leads. Satisfied customers become advocates, recommending a company's products or services to their network. Referrals often come with built-in trust, making potential customers more receptive. This approach can lead to higher conversions due to pre-existing interest. Referrals are a valuable tool for acquiring quality leads and growing a sales pipeline.

Networking

This technique involves building relationships with individuals and organizations to generate leads. You can attend industry events, join professional associations, participate in community activities, and connect on platforms like LinkedIn.

By establishing genuine connections and engaging in meaningful conversations, you can discover new opportunities, gain referrals, and share insights about their products or services. Networking fosters trust and rapport, making prospects more receptive. A strong network can ultimately lead to valuable partnerships, collaborations, and increased sales opportunities.

How to prospect for sales

Along with every other phase of the sales process, prospecting requires strategy. Again, you don’t want to fill your sales pipeline with just anyone.

To see the results you want at the end of your sales process (number of deals closed-won), you will want to start with as many valuable prospects as possible. Here’s how to make it happen.

1. Create a customer profile

The first step of prospecting is creating an ideal customer profile. In this stage, you need to ask yourself, and eventually determine, what type of person is most likely to buy my solution? The answer to this question will guide you in the later stages of the prospecting process.

To create a profile for your ideal customer, look at who you’re already doing business with. Who are your top five customers? Who are your most profitable customers?

With those groups in mind, pick out features that they all have in common. Pay special attention to the job title, industry, and pain points they will use your solution to alleviate. These topics will all likely arise as you reach out to new prospects.

2. Do research

The second step in any effective prospecting strategy is research.

In this stage, sales reps, BDRs, SDRs, or whoever does your prospecting will hope to accomplish one primary goal—to determine if this prospect is worth pursuing if, on paper, they seem ready to buy your business solution. While this will require some conversing with the prospect, plenty can also be done beforehand.

When researching your prospects using the criteria set based on your ideal customer persona, there are a few key questions you should ask yourself.

Q. Can this prospect’s business benefit from our solution?

Take a look at the prospect’s business. Is it the same size as other businesses you typically sell to? Would your solution help them with their line of work? If yes, would that relationship be sustainable?

For example, if you often sell to businesses with more than 1,000 employees and a prospect has only 250, it might not be a good fit.

Q. Who are the key stakeholders?

Identify influencers and decision-makers within the prospect’s business by picking out every person who could impact the sale. Influencers don’t necessarily have the authority to make a buying decision, but they can still offer input regarding whether or not they think your solution is a good fit.

All of the power lies in the hands of the decision-makers, as they have the authority to buy. Look at the prospect’s organizational chart and note who falls into those two categories.

Q. Is there anything keeping them from buying?

Budget limitations and time constraints are common objections presented by prospects. Do your best to understand the prospect’s bandwidth and whether or not they are in the market for a new product or service.

Q. Are they aware of your business/offering?

Because there are plenty of ways to gather a lead’s contact information, some will be familiar with your business, and others will have never even heard of it. As you research, separate the customers who deliberately gave their information from those who didn’t. Don’t underestimate the power of solid preliminary research.

3. Prioritize the leads

With all of that new information uncovered from the research stage, it’s hard not just to dive in and start doing copious amounts of outreach in an attempt to make as many sales as possible. However, a smart sales team would resist that temptation and take the time to prioritize their leads.

Using the answers to the questions you asked yourself above, create different levels of prioritization and place prospects accordingly. This way, you can place more importance on the customers who are most likely to buy your solution and provide your business with the most instant value.

As you progress with prospecting, the goal is to tackle one level at a time, starting with those who are the most likely to buy.

For example, if a prospect’s business can clearly benefit from your solution, its key stakeholders and influencers are reachable, and it interacts with your business’ social media, it should be placed in the most prioritized group.

On the other hand, if another prospect is handling a PR disaster, has no idea you exist, and is half the size of businesses you typically sell to, put them at the bottom of the list.

4. Prep the outreach

So, you have your prioritized list of prospects ready to go. Still, jumping right into the outreach would be a mistake without preparing a bit more. This round of preparation refers to the outreach itself, not the list of prospects.

Before you do your outreach, you need to find a way to personalize the conversation between you and the prospect. The more customized the outreach, the more prospects will feel connected to your business, and the more likely they will move further down your sales funnel.

A good way to get to know your prospects before doing outreach is to check out their blogs, social media accounts, and any page on their website that has personal information. What are they publishing? What type of content are they posting? What information do they reveal about themselves?

You can then find a logical reason to connect with them. Is there a connection you have in common? How did you “stumble upon” their business? Was there something on their website that caught your attention? Use the answers to these questions to prep your outreach and boost your confidence before reaching out.

5. Do the outreach

Finally, it’s time to actually reach out to your prospects. The most important thing to remember as you do so is how your solution applies to their role, business, and industry.

The conversation might stray, and that’s alright - don’t forget to be a human as you speak to prospects. However, if you ever feel the conversation is struggling, always bring it back to that main idea: How can my solution help this particular person?

Moving forward, it’s time to pick an outreach method from the abovementioned techniques. Be strategic about this. Don’t just pick one at random. Your outreach prep should have guided you in the direction you should take with the first outreach touchpoint.

If your prospect is super present on social media, maybe that’s the best place to make contact. If the business is more traditional, a phone call or email should do the trick. Each outreach method has pros and cons, so choose wisely.

6. Review

Lastly, with the notes you took during your conversation with the prospect, evaluate how many boxes they checked to align with your ideal customer persona.

You can then do another round of prioritization based on how much value they can offer your business. This will help you manage prospects as the touchpoints continue.

This last step is also a great opportunity to review the prospecting process. If you walk away from the conversation without much insight into whether or not this prospect is a good fit for your business solution, look back and find out where things went wrong. Ask yourself how well you uncovered their challenges, defined some goals for moving forward, and understood their readiness to buy.

Undergoing this internal review process will only make your future prospecting efforts stronger.

Sales prospecting tips

Sales prospecting is the first step you take in growing your business and its customer base. And even if you abide by the sales prospecting strategy described above, you can still do a few more things to make it as worthwhile as possible.

Don't sell

Let’s say it again for the people in the back: prospecting is not selling. So, don’t turn a prospecting call into a sales pitch. That’s not the point here.

Prospecting creates a solid and well-prioritized list of opportunities that sales reps can capitalize on. It might be hard to resist, but don’t get too ahead of yourself. Turn the qualifying questions into a product demo.

“Once trust has been built through honest communication and quality content, we can talk business.”

Jonathan Aufray
CEO of Growth Hackers

Take the time

Because it isn’t directly focused on the action of closing a deal, prospecting can sometimes be thrown to the wayside. Make sure you dedicate time to prospecting. Not only will it help you weed out unpromising leads, but it’ll also establish the beginning of a relationship with your prospect.

There will always be opportunities to work on something that seems more important than prospecting, but neglecting it will only harm your sales pipeline.

Use a script

While you’ll want a touch of personalization when you reach out to prospects, there is nothing wrong with using a sales call script. Conversations are known to deviate, and if you lose track of the discussion, referring to a script can be a big help in redirecting it in the right direction.

Be social 

Social media allows you to learn more about your prospects by what they are posting and opens up at least one more channel for communicating with them. Take advantage of those channels wherever you can.

“... use social platforms to actually listen to what your customers are saying and then offer up strategic insights as appropriate.”

Josh Dhaliwal
Head of Sales at QGate

Follow up regularly

Your prospects are busy people, and after they hang up the phone or finish reading your email, it might be a while before they even think about your business again. Make sure to create a follow-up schedule that reminds prospects you exist but doesn’t make them wish you would stop reaching out altogether.

Stay up to date

Businesses and the markets from which they buy solutions are constantly changing. As demand and buyer behavior change, your business must evolve its strategies to sell to them as effectively as possible.

Staying up to date also includes making sure that all information you gather when speaking with prospects is collected, organized, and tracked in a CRM tool.

It’s possible that your sales development representatives do the prospecting and then pass opportunities along to reps. It’s also possible that even if the same roles are handling prospecting and sales pitches, they might forget details from the initial conversations. Don’t lose track of valuable data, and make sure to store everything in a CRM.

Sell slowly but surely

When given a lead's contact information, it’s hard to resist the temptation to call or email them right away. While you want to feel the satisfaction of making a sale as soon as possible, good things take time.

As you approach the overall selling strategy of your business, make sure prospecting has a seat at the table. It might add another tedious step, but it will only more efficiently fuel your pipeline.

Once you have your prospecting strategy down, make sure to update it in your sales playbook.

This article was originally published in 2020. It has been updated with new information.