Enterprise prospecting is a multi-stage process that allows a company to systematically narrow in on the correct individuals to speak to in an organisation, and subsequently discern the current or future fit for their services in the organisations they wish to prospect. Enterprise prospecting consists of several distinct stages which, when implemented effectively, help grow basic leads into full opportunities, and allow a business to target their full sales pitch on companies with a definite need and a definite interest. This means sales time is spent closing deals, and not trying to find them.
While it seems a very basic starting-point for enterprise prospecting, effective list development is often overlooked. Effective list development can be the key to the success or failure of an enterprise prospecting campaign. If you don't define the basic parameters of your target audience properly at the beginning, the rest of the prospecting process can be futile. Simply, if you are talking to the wrong customers, it doesn't matter how good your sales process is, or indeed how good your product is. Enterprise prospecting is about finding potential customers with the right budgets and/or needs that make them possible future leads. Once the criteria for the target audience is established, a list of companies that meet the basic target criteria (geography, industry, systems in use, turnover, employees, etc.) should be drawn up. This can be accomplished from existing data, internet searches, purchasing from list brokers, or utilising a professional lead generation agency.
From the outline list of companies developed in Stage 1, the next step is to profile the data. Even if you used current data from your own databases, the details on the lists must be re-verified to help progress the campaign as smoothly as possible. Nurturing a lead for weeks, only to find that an internal change in the company has rendered them outside your target market is an expensive mistake.
Once the basic details are re-verified, the main process, major account profiling can begin through B2B telemarketing. The first step in this process is to profile the companies to ascertain suitability for your company's solutions. This can vary greatly between companies, but here are a few examples:
After each company's information has been verified, the next step in this process is to determine the key decision makers in the target company. Key contacts may have been established as part of the list development process, but they need to be re-verified. In addition, their responsibility needs to be established. An IT Manager will not necessarily have the decision making power over IT Infrastructure projects, so may not be the key contact for your prospecting.
The establishment of key individuals and their responsibilities allows prospecting efforts to be as targeted as possible, since prospecting to the wrong person is a waste of time and resources. However the key contact for a company could still be several people in the organization, depending on the project. For example, if you are prospecting for an ERP system, IT, Finance and Data managers could all be relevant key contacts.
Cleaning, verification, and enhancement of your data should be done systematically, and requires the skills of an experienced operative to acquire the relevant data without falling foul of corporate data restrictions such as "no name" policies. In addition, the person doing this enhancement must be experienced in enterprise prospecting and sales lead generation. Although the object is to gather data, and not to speak to key individuals at this stage, invariably you do sometimes get put through to the key contact. This could be your only opportunity to speak to them, so you have to be ready to nurture the prospect as the opportunity arises.
Another vital process of major account profiling is to establish internal relationships. Without knowing the internal relationships in the company, a prospector will find it difficult to target the correct areas and correct individuals at the correct times. If the IT Director reports to the Finance Director, you would target your prospecting differently than you would if the IT Director reports to the CEO.
The account profiling process will leave you with a list of highly qualified leads. This will save you time by helping you avoid chasing leads that are only marginally qualified or completely unsuitable for your products.
Stage 3 - Sales Lead GenerationOnce the major account profiling has been completed, the sales lead generation companies process begins. Each company must be prospected as an entity. The relationship between the key contacts in the company (who reports to whom, etc.) must be established, and the decision-making abilities of each discerned. The sales partnering relationship begins here. Get off on a good foot here, and your job later will be much simplified. Remember, not every company may be a good prospect now, but if your list development process was correctly specified, they are in your target audience, and may be a prospect in the future.
Once the introduction of your product/service is completed, and the establishment of possible needs/requirements is completed, all leads must be classified to allow them to be tracked. You need to know what leads are ripe for your sales team to try to sell to now, which leads may be ready in a medium period (6-12 months), and which leads are possible future buyers, but with no definable time scale. Use a customer relationship management (CRM) system in some form to record all contacts with each of your leads. This will allow you to track the effectiveness of your sales process and to eliminate redundancies.
Correct classification of your prospects is key. Without this, your sales team will expend efforts on what are not current possibilities, while red-hot leads in other companies may slip by. Strategic Selling is part of the overall approach, not just part of the closing.
Stage 4 - Lead NurturingNot all Leads are ready to close directly after the lead generation process. In fact, very few are. Most leads enter into the nurturing process, where you have made the client aware of your services, established a possible need, and you decide the optimum time period before follow-up contact should be made. Again, this is where the expertise of the individual is paramount. Follow-up too soon, you risk annoying the customer, and being eliminated from any future sales. Follow-up too late, and even if the decision hasn't been made, you may not be able to get your services on the table for consideration. It is a fine line, and one that is difficult to judge. However, getting it wrong at this stage costs your company medium and high-probability opportunities. 3rd party agencies in this area can be an excellent source of expertise without the need for in-house up-skilling and the associated problems of staff-retention and skill-set acquisition.
Following the four stages of enterprise prospecting will get you on the right track. However, even if you do effectively complete the list development, account profiling, B2B telemarketing, and lead nurturing stages, sales can still leak from the pipeline quite easily. In fact, this is the most expensive stage at which to lose a sale, as you have already invested the time and effort to develop, profile, prospect, and nurture the lead all the way to the point of sale. If you are exploring the route of enterprise prospecting, you should also ensure you reduce leaks from your sales pipeline.
2. Implementation
Once you or your B2B Marketing Consultant have developed a solid sales lead development strategy, the next step is to integrate your strategy into existing sales processes seamlessly and painlessly. This integration process has three steps: analyse, design, and implement.
Step 1 - Analyse
In order to implement a sales lead development strategy, you must first analyse your own set-up. You need to determine:
Step 2 - Design
Once you are sure that your organization is ready to go forward with a sales lead development process, the next step is to design that strategy.
Step 3 – Implement
Start the prospecting process slowly. There will often be problems when a new system is implemented, so launching a small-scale project to test out the systems, the staff, and the process may be a good option for your company. Begin the process by isolating an initial target group in your list development. Get your staff members involved in the account profiling process. This will give them a foundation of knowledge about potential client organizations. Assist your staff with the development of call scripts and listen to sales calls to assist your staff with situations they haven't encountered before. Continuously analyse your reasons for success and failure at each stage to optimise your process.
3. Sales Pipeline Management
Often overlooked in the sales and marketing process, managing your existing sales pipeline is probably the most effective way of maximising sales. Generating sales can be a long and complicated process, so avoiding the loss of sales in your pipeline should be a top priority. In addition, managing existing sales properly is a very effective way of generating additional sales.
There are many stages of a sale, and knowing what stage in the pipeline each lead is at will help you reduce sales leakage and manage sales effectively. A lead will flow through several stages in your sales pipeline:
There are several analysis processes that can assist you in managing your sales pipeline:
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