Recommended
More Related Content
What's hot
What's hot (20)
Similar to Prospecting Guide: Grow Business Through Customer Development
Similar to Prospecting Guide: Grow Business Through Customer Development (20)
Recently uploaded
Recently uploaded (9)
Prospecting Guide: Grow Business Through Customer Development
- 1. 1 WHAT IS PROSPECTING? Process of searching for potential customers in order to develop new business. The end goal is to move prospects through the sales funnel until they eventually convert into revenue-generating customers.
- 2. 2 WHY PROSPECTING? 1. Growth 3. Provide a solution to customer’s problems 4. Help customer achieve business objectives 5. Help the market know what we do 2. Lifeline of the business
- 3. 3 HOW?
- 5. 5 WHAT IS IT IN FOR ME? WHAT DOES THEIR COMPANY DO? WHAT HAVE THEY BEEN DOING? WHAT DO YOU KNOW ABOUT YOUR PROSPECT? WHAT HAVE THEY DONE PREVIOUSLY? WHAT ARE THE BUSINESS OBJECTIVES/LONG TERM PLANS? WHAT ARE THE CHALLENGES THEY ARE FACING? WHY ORACLE? WHY NOW?
- 6. 6 BREED FAMILIARITY INTRODUCTION ABOUT PROSPECT WHO WE HAVE BEEN WORKING WITH? CHALLENGES THEY FACED HOW WE HELP THEM RELEVANCE
- 7. 7
- 8. 8
- 9. 9 EXAMPLE OF MY PROSPECTING LIST
- 10. 10 EMAIL EXAMPLE
- 11. Oracle Confidential – Internal/Restricted/Highly Restricted 11 EMAIL EXAMPLE
- 13. Oracle Confidential – Internal/Restricted/Highly Restricted 13 CUSTOMER ENGAGEMENT NOW VS BEFORE?
- 14. Oracle Confidential – Internal/Restricted/Highly Restricted 14 BOOK RECOMMENDATION
Editor's Notes
- Growth – Without prospecting new business, the organization cannot grow. It will always remain stagnant Lifeline – Without new business, the business cannot sustain itself. It cannot keep relying on existing customers. What if we lose existing customers to a competitor? Solution – We help customers solve complex problems. What are some of the challenges your clients are facing right now? For me, retailers are unable to retain existing customers and attract new customers to their stores – no customer engagement and brand experience, lack of store traffic, lack of initiatives to attract customers to stores, more consumers are shopping in e-commerce/mobile, competitive pricing with online retailers. They are hindered with high inventory and operational cost due to lack of proper demand forecasting. RGBU has helped many retailers reduce operational and inventory cost by more than 30%, increase online sales by 33%, increase customer conversion. Objectives – Support and drive customers plan to grow their own business. RGBU has helped GAP drive and support its omni channel growth and store expansion plans by optimizing and streamlining its global operation process. Awareness – Just because there is no need now does not mean there will never be a need in the future. We are helping customers to be aware of what is out there in the market. Though Oracle is a global MNC, I often hear customer saying this. I thought you are just a database company? Our clients need to be informed of what is out there in the market for them. We are helping them make better and more informed choices to choose a company that is the right fit for them. We are actually providing them a service regardless if they choose to buy from us or not.
- Where do my lead source come from? Marketing leads Own research – identify, contact and pitch to relevant Decision makers and influencers Webcast – invite leads to our industry webcast, nurture and generate interest Industry events Referrals – from existing customers, prospects and Field sales. Ask for relevant referrals from the same company/industry.
- WHAT DOES THEIR COMPANY DO? WHAT HAVE THEY BEEN DOING? WHAT DO YOU KNOW ABOUT YOUR PROSPECT?
- Everyone in the team are equipped with the necessary product trainings to ask great questions to find out more about the company and create interest. However one of the biggest challenge most salesperson/BDR faced in cold calling/prospecting is to get to “The Stage” of asking qualifying questions. Prospecting is uncomfortable, not just for us as BDR, but for the prospects as well. They feel this way because they do not trust us yet? How do we get them to feel more comfortable to gain certain level of trust and permission to continue the conversation? The idea is to create familiarity. Make the prospect feel it isn’t a cold call even though it actually is a cold call. All of us are always purchasing thing; people just need to be sold the right way. INTRODUCTION – Namedrop Mutual connection or colleagues we have been in touch with, who we are, events they attended ABOUT THE PROSPECT – what have they been doing recently? What are the organization key strategies in the next 3 years? WHO – namedrop similar customers that we have been working with CHALLENGES – what were the problems they faced? Objectives look to be met HOW – what did we do to help them achieve objectives RELEVANCE – Is it something that they are facing/doing? What are the challenges they are currently facing? What are their plans in the next 12 months to address these challenges? There are no standard set of questions/how you should ask a customer or prospect. Every customer is unique because everyone have different set of objectives. Some may have similar objectives but it is really important to understand our customer and tailor these questions specifically to them. If we spend abit more effort to understand our customers better, our calls will be more specific and straight to the point and not feel like a cold call.
- Breeding familiarity – Using social tools to find out what the company have been doing recently. Read up corporate website and annual reports to find out about their business priorities, strategies and challenges. Find out more about the prospects. What have they done in the past? What projects have they implemented? What do they specialized in? These will help drive the conversation and create familiarity.
- If we manage marketing, find out what they were viewing. What materials did they request? Why are they looking at these materials? What are the relevance to their role and LOB? What are their interest level base on their activity history? Is this a highly engaged lead or not? Find out if we are mutually connected on LinkedIn.
- Create a list of the companies and leads we have research. Compile relevant information you can find about the company in an excel file. List all the contacts under a single account so that you can leverage on leads that you have already pitched to, whether successful or not. You can add a typical email domain to guess their email addresses. I am always looking to integrate marketing leads and cold leads together. For example, if there are certain number of leads from a particular company, it will mean there is interest within the company. I will leverage on marketing leads to use them as point of reference to reach out to more important prospects. Prospecting to key accounts is like fixing a jigsaw puzzle. Some fit in some don’t. The idea is to leverage on all tools given to integrate what we know about the prospect into the phone conversation and breed familiarity with them.
- INTRODUCTION – Namedrop Mutual connection or colleagues we have been in touch with, who we are, events they attended ABOUT THE PROSPECT – what have they been doing recently? What are the organization key strategies in the next 3 years? WHO – namedrop similar customers that we have been working with CHALLENGES – what were the problems they faced? Objectives look to be met HOW – what did we do to help them achieve objectives RELEVANCE – Is it something that they are facing/doing? What are the challenges they are currently facing? What are their plans in the next 12 months to address these challenges? There are no standard set of questions/how you should ask a customer or prospect. Every customer is unique because everyone have different set of objectives. Some may have similar objectives but it is really important to understand our customer and tailor these questions specifically to them. If we spend abit more effort to understand our customers better, our calls will be more specific and straight to the point and not feel like a cold call.
- INTRODUCTION – Namedrop Mutual connection or colleagues we have been in touch with, who we are, events they attended ABOUT THE PROSPECT – what have they been doing recently? What are the organization key strategies in the next 3 years? WHO – namedrop similar customers that we have been working with CHALLENGES – what were the problems they faced? Objectives look to be met HOW – what did we do to help them achieve objectives RELEVANCE – Is it something that they are facing/doing? What are the challenges they are currently facing? What are their plans in the next 12 months to address these challenges? There are no standard set of questions/how you should ask a customer or prospect. Every customer is unique because everyone have different set of objectives. Some may have similar objectives but it is really important to understand our customer and tailor these questions specifically to them. If we spend abit more effort to understand our customers better, our calls will be more specific and straight to the point and not feel like a cold call.
- INTRODUCTION – Namedrop Mutual connection or colleagues we have been in touch with, who we are, events they attended ABOUT THE PROSPECT – what have they been doing recently? What are the organization key strategies in the next 3 years? WHO – namedrop similar customers that we have been working with CHALLENGES – what were the problems they faced? Objectives look to be met HOW – what did we do to help them achieve objectives RELEVANCE – Is it something that they are facing/doing? What are the challenges they are currently facing? What are their plans in the next 12 months to address these challenges? There are no standard set of questions/how you should ask a customer or prospect. Every customer is unique because everyone have different set of objectives. Some may have similar objectives but it is really important to understand our customer and tailor these questions specifically to them. If we spend abit more effort to understand our customers better, our calls will be more specific and straight to the point and not feel like a cold call.
- Everyone in the team are equipped with the necessary product trainings to ask great questions to find out more about the company and create interest. However one of the biggest challenge most salesperson/BDR faced in cold calling/prospecting is to get to “The Stage” of asking qualifying questions. Prospecting is uncomfortable, not just for us as BDR, but for the prospects as well. They feel this way because they do not trust us yet? How do we get them to feel more comfortable to gain certain level of trust and permission to continue the conversation? The idea is to create familiarity. Make the prospect feel it isn’t a cold call even though it actually is a cold call. All of us are always purchasing thing; people just need to be sold the right way.