Learn about the best sales techniques and tactics backed by sales professionals that you can use to close more deals this quarter.
Sales prospecting, also known as outbound lead generation, is the process of initiating contact with ideal customers and turning them into qualified leads. There are many sales prospecting strategies, but the most effective ones — cold calling, cold emailing, and more — follow a similar, five-step process that’s heavy on direct outreach. Often, the goal of the outreach is to qualify an outbound lead and book a meeting for further lead nurturing.
Sales prospecting occurs when salespeople compile a list of lead contact information and then use various outreach methods such as cold calling or emailing to make contact with each lead. Other outbound sales prospecting strategies include networking, door knocking, and more. Regardless of approach, the purpose is to engage a lead and get them to express interest before using a needs assessment or discovery call to qualify them as a prospect for nurturing.
This is in contrast to inbound lead generation, which uses online lead generation tactics to attract paid and organic traffic to a website or landing page. From there, leads are qualified as a marketing lead before being passed to a salesperson for further qualification. In this way, sales prospecting requires active outreach while inbound lead generation is more passive.
When sales prospecting, salespeople often use a hybrid approach that blends various outreach methods, most commonly calls and emails. Some will even use marketing tactics or work with a marketing team to generate inbound leads before contacting the warm lead directly.
Usually, it’s direct sellers from B2B brands who engage in outbound sales prospecting. If you own a business, you might do these methods yourself or hire an in-house salesperson or team. On the other hand, most B2C companies favor inbound lead generation tactics; it’s what their buyers prefer. However, if you sell higher-ticket B2C items such as life insurance, financial services, or a niche industry like real estate, you man find sales prospecting effective.
No matter the outbound lead generation strategy you use, the high-level sales prospecting process follows the same five steps. It starts with choosing your outreach strategy, then assembling a list of leads, connecting with them, and, if they express interest and fit your qualifications, marking them as a prospect:
Now that you understand the outbound lead generation process and steps, let’s go over the six best outbound lead generation strategies that you can use to win more clients.
Each of the six sales prospecting strategies below follow the same five-step process above, with slight differences. Regardless, it’s best to choose a mixture of these strategies. Hitting up your outbound leads from multiple directions increases your chances of sticking in their memory. And as familiarity grows, so do your chances of turning them into a prospect. Let’s go over each strategy and how to generate leads with each.
Who Should Use it: Unless their buyers are phone-adverse, B2B salespeople should use cold calling. B2C salespeople selling high-ticket items like financial services or real estate can use it as well, but they should be extremely personalized in their approach.
Cold calling begins well before you place the call. Find your leads’ phone numbers and any other critical information that can help you personalize the calls. Once you have a list, call the people to initiate conversation and spark interest in your product or service. No matter what you might have heard, it is still effective, especially in the B2B space. You can speak directly with decision-makers, making it a great way to form relationships.
Cold calling is difficult since you are interrupting strangers and trying to turn them into interested prospects. However, if you approach it correctly, you’ll come across as a problem-solver rather than a bother. Here are some cold calling best practices to follow:
To come off as a problem-solver, try using this phrasing to open a cold call: “Hi {name}. I head up new business for {your company name}. I’m calling today because a lot of {their title or company type} are suffering from {common pain point A} and it’s leading to frustrating {problem B}.” Then pause and wait. If you hit on one of their problems, they will ask how you help. If they don’t say anything, say, “Have you experienced any of these problems?”
Who Should Use it: Both B2B and B2C sellers can use cold emailing to get in touch with potential buyers. Because of its scalability, it’s especially useful for those looking to reach out to a large numbers of leads.
Cold emailing begins with sourcing the email addresses of your ideal customers. Equipped with this intel, start sending emails with your sales messaging. The aim is to get them interested in your offer enough to reply with a positive response. To do that, your emails should be personalized and speak to your target market’s specific pain points or needs.
Here are some best practices for cold emailing:
B2C and B2B businesses can find great ROI from cold emailing, as long as they are taking the time to personalize the emails and reaching out to the right people.
Who Should Use it: This is mainly for B2B salespeople using LinkedIn to connect with industry peers. However, it can still be used by B2C sellers hoping to start one-on-one conversations with potential buyers to add an element of personalization to their inbound social media lead generation.
Social selling is when you interact with and reach out to potential customers through social media platforms like LinkedIn, Facebook, or Twitter. But, when it comes to direct outreach, LinkedIn is number one. Through it, you can form a relationship with a potential buyer in a casual way. You slowly build up to asking them for a meeting by liking their comments, replying to their posts, and sending them articles.
Examples of social selling include:
While it’s possible to conduct social selling on LinkedIn using your standard professional profile, consider LinkedIn Sales Navigator. This tool turns your profile into a premium account, giving you a greater ability to message and connect with people with whom you aren’t already connected. Not only, but it even gives you advanced search filters and list-building capabilities.
Who Should Use it: Everyone can network to find customers. An accountant can meet a new client at a yoga studio. A restaurant owner could run a stand at a food festival. A software seller could attend a trade show and demo their product.
Business networking is the act of tapping into and expanding your network to find leads for your business. You can do it by reaching out to your friends to see if they know anyone who might need your service. Or you can attend trade shows and events designed to bring together people in your industry.
Regardless of your company’s goals and industry, networking can help you find and convert more high-quality leads. It can also help you form relationships that will help you in other ways besides increased income, such as industry insights and access to their mutual connections (who just may be quality leads). So, let’s look at some best practices for networking, no matter where it takes place:
Remember, people want to do business with those they trust and enjoy. When you focus on learning about their lives or business and finding ways to add value to them, they will want to help you in return.
Who Should Use it: Both B2B and B2C salespeople from any industry can see success with referrals, especially if your target buyers belong to a tightly knit group, like the NYC real estate industry.
Earning business referrals from your current customers is an effective method for generating leads. People trust the word of their friends and colleagues. So, if you can incentivize your existing customers to tell their peers about their positive experience with your company, you can make contact with warm leads through a credible source.
Get your customers to recommend your business using the following tactics:
Who Should Use it: Best for salespeople with wider markets, numerous prospects located in one locale, or someone assigned a territory. If you’re selling a niche product, it probably doesn’t much sense to knock on 100 doors in a neighborhood hoping to meet your ideal lead.
Cold canvassing, also known as door-to-door sales, is the in-person version of cold calling where you knock on doors and give your sales pitch. It’s primarily used for B2C salespeople, but can also be used by B2B sellers. For example, a realtor who noticed your “For Sale” sign and knocks to tell you he/she can sell it for you. Or a B2B bar supplies salesman goes from bar to bar in NYC offering cups and napkins.
The method certainly lacks scalability, but it gives you the chance to make a personal connection. Sometimes the people you approach will enjoy conversing with a stranger. Some won’t, but that’s what you expect in outbound sales. To give you the best shot of turning that person on the other side of the door into an interested prospect, follow these best practices when door-knocking:
Sales prospecting has tons of upside for the hardworking and thoughtful salesperson. It’s an expression of self-reliance. Profitable prospects are out there, and through your skill and persistence, you can bring in huge quantities of revenue to your business. Let’s go through some of the other main benefits it can bring you and your business:
The work can be quite fulfilling. There’s something special about reaching out to someone who needs your help and getting a positive response. Plus, you’ll meet a lot of interesting people through your efforts.
From sourcing email addresses with a lead generation tool to testing your email subject lines, there are specific best practices that can enhance each part of the three-step outbound lead generation process.
Sometimes scouring the web for people that fit your ideal customer profile can be a hassle, especially if they make it hard to find their contact info. A sales prospecting tool like ZoomInfo can help you get around this issue. With most of these tools, you plug in details about the people you want to connect with and the tool scrapes the web or its database for people or companies that fit the description.
In addition to prospecting tools, there are lead generation companies that can help generate and qualify outbound leads. Different companies use different approaches, such as cold calling, cold emailing, social media, and more. For more information, check out our complete guide on the best lead generation companies.
Following-up is key in your outreach. Rarely will you receive a response from a contact on your first try. Keep calling, emailing, and enacting other outbound strategies until they do. For maximum impact, your follow-ups should provide value to the recipient. That could come in the form of an e-book they might enjoy or a business idea you have for them specifically.
Rejection is part of the outbound lead generation process. You have to get used to it. To overcome any fear of rejection, change your mindset. Remind yourself that you are reaching out to these people to bring value to their lives. Without you, they would be totally unaware of your awesome product or service. When someone tells you they aren’t interested, remember, it’s their loss. Move onto the next one.
Don’t rely on only one outreach method. Instead, use a blended strategy that leverages multiple contact points for engaging a lead. For the best results, marry your outreach with inbound lead generation methods to qualify leads before engaging. For more, read our article on online lead generation.
If you use a cold calling script, test it against a script with a different opening line. Test your email subject lines, body copy, and CTAs. Test religiously. Then you will land on outbound lead generation messaging and tactics that resonate most with your target market.
Sales prospecting is the process of reaching out to potential buyers who fit your ideal customer profile and converting them into prospects interested in your offering. To succeed in this work, you need self-discipline, persistence, and a knack for creating business relationships out of thin air. No matter which of the six methods you choose, the successes they bring will be all thanks to your hard work. And that’s quite the feeling.
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