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There is a slight change in the types of topics that are being discussed in the entrepreneurial networking events in post dot-com bubble era. Now more topics like ‘Building a Sales Organization’, ‘Closing On Early Stage Sales’ and ‘Exploring International Sales & Partnership’ are being discussed.
Sure the entrepreneurial discussions do include VC and raising money, but in the current economic environment there is a greater emphasis on generating sales.
This should not come as a big surprise because without sales no business can survive. However, it does require a change in the thinking for most entrepreneurs as sales is not usually their forte. It requires a new perspective on prospecting too, without which you can not do effective business development or generate sales.
Business development is a proactive process. You just can not wait for things to happen and the customers to come to you. Rather you must go out and make things happen. This is where prospecting comes into picture, whether it is a direct prospecting where you pound the phone or the pavement to get leads or indirect prospecting where you network, build relationships and keep your antennas up for new business all the time.
Prospecting Is Not Only For Sales People
Typically we associate prospecting with sales domain but to keep it
restricted to only sales people will limit the growth of your
business. No activity of a business can survive on it own. It takes
a host of activities and people to interact with each other for a
business to succeed. It is true for sales and prospecting too.
The boundary lines between sales and business
development are really blurred which means that responsibility to
prospect should be shared by both – maybe cold-calling could be
directly within the domain of sales but in-direct prospecting should
be the fair game for other business development folks too.
Prospecting is, perhaps, more crucial to the
success of your business than any other activity. The success of a
business depends upon sales. Sales depend upon number of qualified
opportunities. Number of opportunities or leads depends upon
prospecting.
Prospecting is one activity that greatly
increases the probability for sales and it should not be left to
only sales people rather entrepreneurs and all top management should
play a role in it, which means that they all should have a strategy
for it. They must do smart prospecting.
Smart Prospecting
There are people who work hard and there are
people who work smart. Who do you think succeeds more often? The
smart people. Right?
The same is true for prospecting. You would be greatly successful if you
do smart prospective, which means that you should be efficient with
your time and effective with your methods. Following two step
process would help you achieve this.
- Make It An Integral Part
Having understood that prospecting should not be restricted to sales
people you must make it an integral part of your hob. You need to
decide whether you would pursue it consciously – earmarking separate
time and resources for it - or pursue it sub-consciously -
as a by-product of your other activities.
What ever you do you
must establish clear objectives against which you could measure your
performance. The types of objectives and strategies that you set – conscious
versus sub-conscious – would lay the guidelines for
next step.
- Develop A Game Plan
The second step is to develop a game plan for prospecting – a plan that suits
your objective and style. Developing such a game plan would entail
its own sub-steps though you would need to consider following few
things.
Law of Sowing & Reaping:
Sales and prospecting both are numbers game. More
opportunities that you have in your pipeline the greater are your
chances of success. Your game plan should incorporate the Law Of
Sowing & Reaping, which says that the size of your harvest is
directly proportional to the number of seeds you plant. The same is
true for prospecting – the more time you spent on it the more
leads you will get.
Maximize The RoI:
You also need to consider is the rate of return of your
prospective activities. You need to understand how best you could
maximize the return on your investment – whether you should fish
for minnows or whales.
Networking:
Another
thing that you need to consider is the obvious and not-so obvious
form of networking. The obvious form of networking would be to network
within your industry – where your clients and prospects mingle.
This would establish you as a player within your industry, give you
visibility and allow you to understand the competition. The not-so
obvious form of networking is networking outside of your immediate
industry’s events. The advantage of this form of networking is
that it provides you with additional sources of prospects that your
competition normally would not get.
Materials & Tools:
Finally, your game plan should include various materials and tools
for you to effectively prospect. These should include material to
get the attention of your prospects, to address objections, to
follow-up on contacts made, to handle rejections etc.
In the movie Glen Gary, Glen Ross the character played by Alec Baldwin
says to the sales people of the real estate company, ‘Always be
closing’. A precursor to that would be ‘Always be
prospecting’, because without prospecting you would not have those
leads that are so crucial to closing.
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