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    Prospecting for New Clients: An Essential Sales Warrior's Survival Guide
    Prospecting for New Clients: An Essential Sales Warrior's Survival Guide
    Prospecting for New Clients: An Essential Sales Warrior's Survival Guide
    Ebook81 pages1 hour

    Prospecting for New Clients: An Essential Sales Warrior's Survival Guide

    By Dave Kahle

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    About this ebook

    There is probably no task in the world of sales that causes more sleepless nights, sweaty palms, and frustrated salespeople, sales executives, and business owners than acquiring new customers. The vast majority of salespeople would prefer to never have to call on a prospect. The process is fraught with rejection, frustration, and wasted time and effort.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherCareer Press
    Release dateAug 22, 2013
    ISBN9781601635051
    Prospecting for New Clients: An Essential Sales Warrior's Survival Guide
    Author

    Dave Kahle

    Dave Kahle has been the top salesperson in the nation for two companies in two distinct industries. He has authored nine books, presented in 47 states and nine countries, and has personally and contractually worked with more than 300 companies to help them increase their sales. Specializing in the B2B environment, Dave creates customized training programs, speaks at national conventions, and consults in areas of sales system design and sales force compensation. He splits his time between Grand Rapids, Michigan, and Sarasota, Florida. You can connect with him at www.davekahle.com.

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      Book preview

      Prospecting for New Clients - Dave Kahle

      Preface

      Congratulations for buying and reading this E-book. That simple act alone puts you in the top 5 percent of salespeople. Believe it or not, only one out of 20 salespeople has spent $25 of their own money on their improvement in the last 12 months. You doing so, places you in the exclusive company of salespeople who are willing to invest in their own improvement.

      In the world of professional sales there are best practices, just like there are in every other profession. These are specific behaviors that are proven to be more effective than others. Throughout the 25 years that I have made a living helping people improve their sales performance, I have made it my business to identify the best practices of every aspect of the salesperson’s job.

      In this E-book, I have combined a number of these best practices, all focused on the incredibly challenging task of creating new customers. It is my hope that you will find specific ideas, concepts, and practices that you can implement immediately to improve your results.

      Before we get into these subjects, some acknowledgments are in order. Hundreds of clients have invited me to speak to their salespeople or to work with their sales managers. This experience has provided much of the raw material for this E-book.

      Tens of thousands of salespeople have attended my seminars and webinars. The feedback that they provided helped me hone my message.

      My staff, particularly Cheryl, who reads every word I write, provided me with the space and time to devote to this project.

      My wife, Coleen, is forever supportive.

      My Savior, Jesus Christ, has transformed my life and brought me to the place where I can touch people with wisdom and authority.

      I owe them all.

      Chapter 1

      Introduction

      There is probably no task in the world of sales that causes more sleepless nights, sweaty palms, and frustration for salespeople, sales executives, and business owners than that of acquiring new customers. The vast majority of salespeople would prefer to never have to call on a prospect. The process is fraught with rejection and wasted time and effort. Add to that, the changes in the economy, the proliferation of electronic communications, and the explosion of new competitors, and you have something that borders on a nightmare for salespeople.

      Acquiring new customers is becoming the one place in the sales process that defines success for companies and for individual salespeople. Do it better than average, and you have a shot at success. Do it less than average, and you probably won’t survive.

      Regardless of the kind of business you’re in, the market, the product, or the state of the economy, there are ways to do it better and to improve your results. As in every other sophisticated endeavor, there are insights and practices that rise up to the surface because of their proven effectiveness. The purpose of this E-book is to shine light on some of those practices so that you’ll be better able to acquire new customers.

      Let’s begin by putting it in perspective. The following diagram describes what I call The Fundamental Sales Strategy for a selling organization in general, and each individual salesperson in particular.

      This describes the fundamental process for a selling organization. Notice the globe at the left-hand side of the process. This indicates the land of apathy and ignorance. Who lives in the land of apathy and ignorance? People who hopefully will buy your product or service. They don’t know you exist, so they are ignorant of you. They don’t care that you exist. Their lives and businesses have been okay without you, so they are apathetic to your very existence.

      The first task of any sales system is to reach into the land of apathy and ignorance and identify those people whom you suspect may one day do business with you. We call those suspects. Having identified a set of suspects, the sales system must then learn something about them, so that some can be discarded and others moved to the next step in the process: prospects.

      Typically, a prospect is a suspect who has a legitimate need for what you offer. (He’s not a student researching you for an academic project, for example.) A prospect typically is a person or unit of people who have the ability to make the decision about buying your product or service, and, perhaps most importantly, a prospect can pay for your product or service. Not every suspect meets these criteria, so a number of them fall by the wayside, never become prospects, and never enter our system.

      This is a good time to make this point: At every step of the process, there are qualitative differences in each class. For example, some prospects are of higher quality than others. Some customers (the next class) are better than others.

      Not only that, but it is the job of the sales system (and, sometimes the salesperson) to methodically and efficiently move people from one place on the process to the other. Because this is a process that requires skills, processes, tools, and so on, we can forever become better at that process.

      So, although some sales systems can do an adequate job of moving suspects to prospects, others can do it better. The focus of every sales system should be to forever become better.

      Back to our fundamental sales process.

      Once you, or your system, have identified a prospect, you now must interact with that individual or company to such an extent that they give you money for what you have. When that transaction takes place, you have created a customer.

      But you are not

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