Every sales force believes that they are skilled and confident enough to conquer the market. However, they often forget that the most basic skills are the hardest to master. For B2B sales, the rockiest mountain to climb is Prospecting.
Some of you may be laughing as you read this, but it is the truth. Prospecting is about 90% of your real sales work while closing and follow-ups are at the very end of the sales process. Today, Sales Ninja will share why this is the most difficult sales skill to master.
Introduction & Opener
The 1st problem to all salespeople: the beginning. During a cold-call, your opener is either scripted or it begins with the standard intro:
“Hi, my name is YOUR NAME and I am calling from YOUR COMPANY. I am calling to offer you our solution and how it can help your company.”
The problem with this is a habit. Even if you aren’t trained, the natural urge to introduce yourself and straight away offer your product/solution would be strong. Even experienced people tend to follow this old step out of habit.
It’s difficult to master a new opener especially if it’s unscripted. For B2B, a proper opener should start with:
“Hello, Mr. CLIENT, this is YOUR NAME calling from YOUR COMPANY. 2018 has been a rough year for Malaysia and next year is expected to be tougher. What we do is help sales teams to achieve their targets through tough times and face competitors.”
Identifying Key Players
Part of prospecting that far too many salespeople miss out is finding out the right person to talk to. Junior and senior salespeople generally like to talk to those they feel comfortable with, thus never approaching the managers or heads of departments as they are the ones to sign the contract.
The reason for this is fear. Fear of rejection, fear of being yelled at, fear of harsh criticism if the presentation goes wrong, etc. This is all in the mind and if you believe in such fears, you are already dooming yourself to fail because you don’t know what will happen.
You must remember that on the other end of the phone, your client is still human, and they will always be open to any ideas or solutions that can benefit their company.
Inactive Cold Calling
There is nothing worse within bad prospecting than not doing any cold calling. The point of doing the cold calling is to find new clients to prospect. However, in the B2B line of sales, many salespeople don’t even do this.
Typically, they would just manage their current set of clients and try to either get repeated sales or upsell current products. Or better still, they would wait until an inquiry comes in from the inbounds.
Cold calling new clients are currently the best way to prospect for new potential clients. Without actively looking for new potentials, you will never be able to step out of a repeated sales cycle.
Sales Prospecting Training
Every form of sales requires prospecting, but many overlook this difficult skill as they believe prospecting is the easiest. Sales Ninja has trained thousands of sales professionals both junior and experienced to master the art of prospecting thus resulting in more sales!
Click HERE to contact us and our Senior Solutions Manager will contact you with fully customized solutions to teach your people:
- HOW to have the right opener when introducing yourself
- HOW to identify key decision-makers
- HOW to overcome fear to speaking with Directors or Chief Officers
- HOW to perform effective cold-calling
- HOW to motivate yourself from a worrier to a warrior
