When it comes to drumming up new business, like anyone involvedin sales, your first big challenge will be to reach the rightindividuals. To successfully find new prospects for your productsand services, you’ll need a hard-working prospecting program thatreaches out to qualified prospects and moves them through the salescycle from cold to warm to hot. Your program must incorporate arange of marketing tactics that, over time, bring prospectsincrementally closer to a decision to hire you.
Cold prospects are customers or organizations you’veidentified as well-qualified but that have little or no awarenessof your company. They can be reached through advertising, publicrelations, cold calling and networking. Begin a campaign ofmagazine advertising to showcase your unique selling proposition,and set up an ongoing public relations program that targets thesame publications. Also create a prospect list of qualifiedindividuals or organizations, and support your marketing effortswith cold calling. To round out your efforts to reach coldprospects, begin networking within select groups where you’re mostlikely to come into contact with members of your targetaudience.
Once you’ve begun calling on top prospects and leads from youradvertising and PR programs start to roll in, you’ll need to set upa database using contact management software. This will help youconsistently maintain ongoing contact with warmprospects-companies and individuals with whom you’ve previouslyspoken or met. Initiate a direct-mail campaign to make frequentcontact with your database. And support the campaign with salesactivities, including follow-up phone calls as well as meetingswith prospects generated by your direct mail, advertising andpublic relations.
Hot prospects are the ones you’ve successfully movedthrough the first two stages of your sales cycle. When yourmarketing program has brought them to this point, you’ll need toget personally involved to supply the “heat” to close sales.
