Wednesday, July 20, 2011

How To Toolbox

How to develop sales leads

It’s no secret that sales is all about people, whether it is keeping customers happy, knowing what they need or just figuring out where to find and connect with potential customers. The last part is square one.

Mass High Tech soon will launch a weekly tech sales column featuring discussions by four leading sales experts, who will look at various aspects of the sales process in the New England tech sector. The four authors shared some of their advice on developing sales leads. Watch for the sales column starting next month on MassHighTech.com.


Lisa Dennis, president, Knowledgence Associates

Use value to break through voicemail and gatekeepers. Does your message or opening sound like every other sales person? Are you repeating the same message over and over, and wonder why no one is calling you back? Develop strong, important, customer-focused unique selling propositions (USPs) and then dole them out one at a time, as you move through the cycle to get a live connection. This gives you the ability to add something new to every contact you make to get the meeting. This is much more intriguing to a prospect than hearing the same “sales-y” message repeatedly.

Identify micro-targets in each territory. Everyone in your sales organization is wondering where they are going to find the deals to make their quotas this year — more so than ever before. Given that as a general rule, the majority of sales come from a minority piece of a given territory, there is much work to be done in uncovering and targeting new business that has been hiding there for some time. Territory mapping is an excellent tool to assist sales reps in making strategic decisions on exactly where in their territory new business is going to come from.

Mike Myers, vice president, WINNING Inc.

When it comes to talking about money with prospect’s, perception is reality. It doesn’t matter what the salesperson’s perception is about the price of the product or services, only what the prospect perceives. If the prospect perceives it is too expensive, it is. If the prospect perceives they are getting a deal, they are.

Deals never fall apart at the end. That is just when the salesperson finds out about it. Usually something goes wrong early in the process that manifests itself at the end. We never realized that we weren’t talking to the decision-maker until the end.


Jim Naro, business partner at CustomerCentric Selling

When leveraging networking technology for generating leads, don’t forget to include your existing customers. Once an implementation of your offering has been successful invite key players to join your network. Asking for a recommendation, say in LinkedIn, is much less formal than requesting a press release and will carry more weight. More important, you will get personal updates regarding promotions and job moves of those key players.

“Pain” still resonates when getting someone to say, “I’m interested, tell me more.” So, in cold prospecting via email or by phone lead with messaging regarding the top three business issues your customers have resolved using your products or services. Then you can transition to prospects’ aspirations.

Ken Cheo, partner, WINFREE Business Growth Advisors

If you give it away, make it count. So you have developed your leading edge technology and ready to go to market. When is making that deal that is too good to turn down, a good deal? Think about what you would like to get out of the relationship. Are you looking for a stellar reference? Make sure they are willing to provide one, how they will do it, and on what conditions. Do you need a development partner? Who is the best fit for that relationship and stands to gain the most from it. Don’t be so eager to jump at the first opportunity if you can make it more strategic with clearly defined benefits for both parties.

Getting that first customer. So you demonstrated your product or service works and have some very happy customers. How do you land that first big deal that will cause the investors to take notice? A referral is still the best way. Have a clear idea of who that ideal client is. Hopefully your happy clients will be in a position to introduce you.
Set the stage early that you will be asking provided they are happy. If you don’t have an introduction from a customer or someone else, make sure you are carving out time to work multiple active prospecting channels and not spending all of your time courting investors. They may just ask you to go out and prove that your prospects will buy and they will come to the table much faster if you have.