On a recent sales Training courses it was asked ‘do we have to continuously prospect for new customers?’ Well the answer is a resounding yes. All successful sales people practice the same basic principles to achieve more sales, and the first step of any sale must be prospecting.
I recall a sales training video many years ago called ‘Prospecting for more sales’ and I will always remember a comment made on the video, the comment was ‘without prospects, you have no prospects’ I have learned through years of selling and delivering sales training courses just how true this statement is.
Many potential salespeople have floundered over the years not because of their face to face selling skills but because of their lack of prospects to sell to.
If you don’t keep replenishing prospects so as you always have someone to sell to, you will never get off the starting blocks.
Many salespeople fail to continue prospecting they find that they get caught up in selling to the prospects in front of them today and fail to continue to have prospects for tomorrow and the next day and the next day.
I recall hearing on a sales Training courses many years ago, it is as important to replace every prospect you are speaking with today by at least 2 names for tomorrow.
So how do you keep a continuous flow of prospects? Well there is no right way to prospect and no wrong way but you must continue to try every idea you can think of,
One key area that successful salespeople use is the skill of achieving referrals. A referral is when a client or prospect passes you on or introduces you to other people that they know and you may not know
When you are speaking with any potential client always remember – we all know people others don’t know. It is your responsibility to get to the next person so you should always be looking for names of others from whoever you are speaking with.
The key to referrals is to be specific, let us assume you are selling Life Assurance and you are speaking with a client and seeking to get a referral. To ask the person if they know anyone who may be interested in your services (Life Assurance) is a very weak effort as let’s be honest we would all find that difficult.
If some one asked you a different question such as ‘who do you know that has had children in the last 12 months’ or ‘who do you know that has got married in the last 12 months’ or ‘who do you know that has changed jobs recently’ these are easier questions for your client to answer than ‘who do you know who may have an interest in our services?
Now as we know from sales Training courses just because some one has got married recently it does not mean they are a prospect for Life Assurance –but it does mean their circumstances have changed and they may be a prospect.
It is your job as a salesperson to then determine whether or not this new name is a prospect or just a suspect.
Frank O’Toole from www.premiertrainingcourses.co.uk is an expert with real life, practical experience of empowering and developing sales personnel. Through hard work and determination Frank has established his name and his company. To learn more about the Training courses that are provided by www.premiertrainingcourses.co.uk then please contact us.