Fanatical Prospecting: The Ultimate Guide to Opening Sales Conversations and Filling the Pipeline by Leveraging Social Selling, Telephone, Email, Text, and Cold Calling (Jeb Blount)

by Jeb Blount

Familiarity plays an important role in getting prospects to engage. The more familiar a prospect is with you, your brand, and/or your company, the more likely they will be willing to accept and return your calls, reply to your e-mails, accept a social media connection request, respond to a text message, and engage when you are prospecting in person. We're going to do a much deeper dive into the Law of Familiarity in Chapter 12.

strategic prospecting campaigns (SPCs)

Your primary objective is to create enough familiarity that these cold prospects are more likely to engage. Each time you leave a voice mail, they hear your name and your company name and their familiarity with you increases. Each time you send an e-mail, they read your name and see your e-mail address, company name, and service brand, and their familiarity with you increases. When you connect with them on LinkedIn, familiarity increases. When you like, comment on, or share something they post on a social media channel, familiarity increases. When you meet them at an industry conference and put a face with a name, familiarity increases. The bottom line is, if you don't have a plan and you don't know your objectives, your prospecting blocks will be far less effective and you will waste time.

10 Leveraging the Prospecting Pyramid

Top performers have no interest in hunting and pecking for opportunities, so they design their lists to make prospecting blocks efficient and effective.

Top performers view their prospect database as a pyramid.

At the bottom of the pyramid are the thousands of prospects they know little about other than a company name and perhaps some contact information. They don't know if the information about the prospect is correct (and there is a good chance that it isn't). Action: The goal with these prospects is to move them up the pyramid by gathering information to correct and confirm data, fill in the missing pieces, and begin the qualifying process. Higher up the pyramid, the information improves. There is solid contact information, including e-mail addresses. There may be information on competitors, product or service usage numbers, the size of the budget, and other demographic information. There may also be contact information for decision makers and influencers. Action: The goal with these prospects is to identify the buying window and all potential stakeholders. Moving higher up, potential buying windows have been identified. There are complete contact records for decision makers and influencers, including social profiles. Action: Your focus at this level is to implement nurturing campaigns to stay in front of confirmed decision makers in anticipation of an identified future buying window. Further up are conquest prospects. This is a highly targeted list of the best or largest opportunities in your territory. There will be a limited number: 10, 25, 50, 100. Action: The focus for conquest prospects includes nurturing and regular touches, stakeholder identification, buying window qua...

Use these elements in combination to structure your prospecting lists for maximum impact.

Prospecting objective: set an appointment, gather information, close the sale, build familiarity Prospecting channel: phone, e-mail, social, text, in person, networking Qualification level: highest qualified at the top of the list—least qualified at the bottom of the list Potential: largest opportunities at the top of the list—lowest potential at the bottom of the list Probability: highest potential probability to achieve your objective at the top of the list—lowest probability at the bottom of the list Territory plan: day of week, postal code, street, geographic grid, city Inbound leads Conquest prospects Decision maker/stakeholder role Industry or market vertical Customers that purchase a specific type of product or service Seasonal customers Inactive customers Leads from a recent trade show or conference

11 Own Your Database Why the CRM Is Your Most Important Sales Tool

Your CRM is the most important tool in your sales arsenal because it:

It remembers important things for you and reminds you when those things are important.

Own It Like a CEO

Fanatical prospectors own their database. They own it because they get it. Their database is where targeted lists come from. Their database makes them more efficient and effective. It should be so important to you that you eat, sleep, and drink it.

12 The Law of Familiarity

The more familiar a prospect is with you, your brand, and/or your company, the more likely they will be to accept and return your calls, open your e-mails, accept a social media connection request, respond to a text message, accept an invite to an event or webinar, download information from a link you sent them, engage in sales conversations, and ultimately do business with you.

The Five Levers of Familiarity

Persistent and Consistent Prospecting

Referrals and Introductions

The most powerful and direct path to familiarity is a referral or introduction.

There are three basic types of referrals:

Customer referrals come from happy clients that trust you. The key to generating these referrals is developing a disciplined, systematic process for asking for referrals.

Personal referrals come from friends, family, and acquaintances. These are people who know you and are willing to send prospects your way. Take time to educate your personal connections on what you do and your ideal prospects so they know what to look for. Then (...

Professional referrals come from relationships you've developed with other professionals in related industries or with salespeople who may call on the same type of prospects but don't compete with you. These are typically mutually beneficial relationships. To generate these referrals, you must seek out, form, and make an ongoing investment in these profes...

The real secret to generating referrals is: Give a legendary customer experience. Ask. That's it. Straightforward and simple.

“Patricia, thank you again for your business. I'm glad to hear you are happy with us. I'm working hard to add more customers like you. Would you be able to introduce me to other people in your network who might want to use our product?”

Networking

There are opportunities to network in your community or in your territory every week. The first place to check with is the chamber(s) in your territory. Then Google or Bing the calendars of other business and civic organizations in your area. Finally, ask your prospects and customers which events, conferences, and trade shows they attend.

You don't go to networking events to sell. You are not there to set appointments, get leads, or close business. You are there to create connections with other people. You get those other things after the connections are established. There should be no quid pro quo attached to your conversations.

When I've had a positive conversation, I will also send a short text to thank the person for taking time to speak with me, followed by a LinkedIn connection request to further anchor familiarity.

Company and Brand Familiarity

Personal Branding

This is the ultimate way to build familiarity because people buy you. They buy you and trust you because they believe that you are the only person who can solve their unique problem.

Speak in public, regularly.

When you speak in public, at least for a moment, you are considered a minor celebrity who people want to meet. After you give your speech, people walk up to you, engage you in conversations, freely reveal their business issues, and voluntarily hand over their

Organizations like the chamber of commerce, Rotary Club, trade organizations, and other business and civic groups are always in need of guest speakers.

Warning

Like everything in sales, building familiarity is about balance. You've got to balance the need for sales today with an investment in the future.

13 Social Selling

social selling is inextricably woven into the fabric of fanatical prospecting. Top performers know this, and that's why they are rapidly adopting social selling tactics for prospecting and are willing to pony up to pay for access.

You'll find virtual training modules, tutorials, articles, comprehensive e-books, and videos on social prospecting at www.FanaticalProspecting.com.

Social Selling Is Not Selling

The bottom line is people don't want to be pitched or “sold” on social media. They prefer to connect, interact, and learn.

social prospecting is about nuance, tact, and patience.

Social selling is a collective term that encompasses a variety of activities—all designed to enrich the sales process and fill the pipe with more qualified and motivated prospects. These activities include: Social research Social networking Social lead generation Social inbound marketing Social prospecting Social trigger-event monitoring Social competitive intelligence Social customer relationship management (CRM) Social account management With that said, it is critical that you include social selling in your sales arsenal and work to become a master at leveraging the social channel. No matter what you are selling, integrating social into your prospecting and sales process is no longer an option.

Choosing the Right Social Channels

Go where your prospects hang out.

For most salespeople, though, LinkedIn will be the primary social channel.

Five Objectives of Social Prospecting

Personal branding and building familiarity Inbound prospecting via education and insights Trigger-event and buying-cycle awareness Research and information gathering Strategic prospecting campaigns Outbound prospecting