Business Growth Blog

One of the biggest problems businesses face is figuring out what to say to take a prospect from “Who the heck are you?” to “I want to do business with you!”

How do you get on your prospects’ radars and capture their interest? The first step is to clearly understand your buyer journey. The second step is to create and promote the type of information prospects need at each stage.

Getting sales meetings with new prospects is not easy. They have no idea who you are, are overwhelmed with work, can't imagine taking on another project, and are happy with the status quo. It takes tremendous effort to get prospects to understand the benefit of making a change and then get them to actually move forward with a new idea.

My friend Jill Konrath, sales strategist, speaker, and author of 3 bestselling sales books put a message on LinkedIn asking for people to submit sales limericks for a project she’s working on. It got my wheels turning, and I ended up coming up with something. Here it is!

Sellers are on the front lines talking to prospects and customers all day long. They have deep company and industry expertise and know what messaging elicits the best responses. If anyone understands what information will resonate with your ideal buyer persona, it’s them.

But too often, sales and marketing are not aligned, and sellers aren’t at the table when it comes to developing the corporate content strategy or lending their experience and expertise to the content creation process. Here are some ideas about how to get your sales team engaged in creating useful blog articles that prospects and customers want to read:

Many organizations are turning to sales enablement to ensure that sellers have the tools, processes, and content they need to meet the new demands of savvy buyers armed to the teeth with information. Here are some articles and resources that can help you deepen your understanding of sales enablement, determine if it’s right for you, and start formulating a plan for your organization.

Your sales team has a list of hot prospects to contact. The problem is - the prospects have never heard of your company or the salesperson. Should the seller write a letter, send an email, make a call? What the heck are they supposed to say?

Rather than struggling to start a sales conversation, there are ways to systemize the prospecting process to make it more efficient and productive. When done correctly, sellers will always have the right messaging at their fingertips to create account entry campaigns that get potential customers to take notice.

Warning: what I'm going to suggest is not a quick fix. It takes strategic thinking, time, and alignment between sales and marketing to pull it off. But if you commit to the process, your sales team will have more leads, more time to actually sell, and shorter sales cycles.

Here are 3 steps to simplify sales prospecting:

No matter how good your salespeople are, if your website is bad, it’s going to make it infinitely harder for them to sell. Today's educated buyers don't need to talk to a salesperson to evaluate and compare companies, products, services, and pricing. They turn to the Internet first, gathering as much information as they can. According to Demand Gen Report's 2014 Content Preferences Survey:

Salespeople, by trade, are usually quite optimistic. We’re determined, visionaries, and persistent. That’s what makes us good, but it can also hold us back. Pursuing prospects takes a lot of time and energy, and going after the wrong people can dramatically inhibit company growth.

A friend of mine, Janice Mars, founder of SalesLatitude, gave me three simple questions that can help you quickly determine whether they are worth your time investment or not. The faster you can qualify prospects, the faster you can fill your pipeline with high-quality sales opportunities.

I’m still amazed at how many small business still don’t think of their website as the most powerful sales and marketing tool they have. They see it as a “necessary evil” (yes, I’ve heard business owners say those exact words).

It’s very interesting if you think about it, because EVERYONE (pretty much) uses the Internet all day, every day. Have a question? Google it! Buyer behavior has been undergoing dramatic changes as our world becomes increasingly digitized, but most small business owners continue to sell the same way they always have.

I found this infographic on the HubSpot Blog that breaks down a bad prospecting email. It really caught my attention because I have recently seen an email that looks just like this one. I think the author, Leslie Ye is right on with this analysis. Writing good prospecting emails is hard work, and this is a great example of how NOT to do it.