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How to Research Prospects Before a Sales Call

When you go about getting prospects the wrong way, your results will be below expectations. So instead, let’s talk about the right way to go after prospects. It’s all about the warm calls over the cold calls. Here are the best tips to help you research your prospects:

Key Takeaways

  • First, use resources online to research your prospect. Look for their website, social media, articles they’re cited on, and news articles mentioning them.
  • The best information you’ll get will come directly from the prospect themselves. Refer to records of your company’s prior engagements with the lead. You may find these records in your CRM or prospect spreadsheet.
  • When setting up your call with the prospect, remember to be timely with your prep for the call. Show up with an outline of what info you want to share with them. During the call, confirm that you’re on the same page regarding key points.

Online Research

Research will allow you to have a better understanding of the company you’re calling on, which will lead to a successful conversation with your prospect. This information will let you personalize your pitch to create a unique connection and build rapport with each prospect. Not only will you grab the prospect’s attention by “due diligence” demonstrated, but they will be more likely to listen to what you have to say! Perhaps even more important- research (i.e. qualifying) will offer insight into whether a prospect remains pursuable.

There is plenty of publicly available information online. Researching a company on LinkedIn is one effective way to acquire valuable information. For example, the company page typically showcases their services and industry-related articles, as well as a list of their awards and achievements. Browse the company website to explore their mission statement, published blog content, or a staff list. This list may identify their name and title, which will help in determining who the right contact is.

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sales tips for insurance 2024 header

Sales Tips for Insurance in 2024

After a long and arduous year, 2024 brings a fresh start. Now is the perfect opportunity to revamp your company’s commercial sales and marketing plan. This article will show you how any agency can improve its sales in the upcoming year, despite the challenges that may come along the way. Consider these insurance sales tips for 2024:

 Prospect List and Qualification 

Get started by evaluating your company’s prospect list. Identify your most qualified business opportunities. Take some time to reconstruct your target market and focus your attention on them – particularly, your Top 100. The pandemic has caused many businesses to change the way they do business, while others had to close down all together. Many producers focus on certain industry segments such as construction, restaurants and manufacturing, all whose ‘face’ has changed quite a bit this past year. It’s important to requalify your list to be sure you have the most practical targets during this time.   (more…)

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Sales Tips to Finish 2020 Strong

Sales Tips to Finish 2021 Strong

Even though there didn’t appear to be much of a “summer”, the calendar kept moving. Not long ago we were writing about What to Expect From Salespeople During this Time and Adapting Your Value Proposition, and now fall has already arrived. Whether vacations were canceled, rescheduled or modified, working people hopefully took some time off to refresh and sales has become top of mind again. Let’s turn up the momentum as decision makers return from their “summer” vacations, eager to start the last quarter strong.  

Track Your Efforts and Re-strategize. 

Identify the prospects you contacted these last few months, and ask yourself the following questions:  

  • Did you make ‘touch base’ calls by phone when businesses were adapting to the pandemic?  
  • Did you utilize any direct mail campaigns or email newsletters and monitor engagement?  
  • Did you attend any virtual networking events or conferences?
  • Did you enter new contact information into your CRM or prospect Excel spreadsheet?   

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The Prospect List

The Prospect List

Even the idea of creating a solid prospect list can be daunting. Your prospecting activity in your list reflects your entire sales pipeline. The more activity against your target market (e.g., phone outreach, email, LinkedIn or direct mail), the better the likelihood of building trust and sales activity that leads to closed deals and more referrals.

To create a steady pipeline, you must rely on the paramount foundation of sales activity, which is best kept as a running log of emails, phone calls and other marketing techniques to get attention, and then acquire sales. Here are some small steps to make the process less overwhelming.

Identify Your Sales Targets

To identify your sales targets properly, start by mapping out your core niche industries and geographic radius. Commission opportunities based on staff size and industry will dictate how best to spend your marketing dollars. If you’re going after property/casualty insurance or workers’ compensation—those groups in which staff size is more important than class of business—determine the staff size minimums that still can justify a marketing-spend in targeting them. (more…)

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The Importance of Good Time Management in Sales

The Importance of Good Time Management in Sales

Time management is an important skill that all salespeople should learn how to master and key performance indicators are a great way to measure how well your salespeople manage their time. The most important KPI that you might use to measure performance is the number of sales each salesperson makes in a week or month. While this can certainly be helpful in determining how “good” your salespeople are at selling, it is also important to consider the quality of each of these sales along with the interactions that come before it. Sometimes it is better to make fewer substantial sales than many small ones that are underqualified or require. With the help of good time management skills, your salespeople can… 

Key Takeaways

  • Don’t waste time on unqualified leads. Make sure your lead qualification system is robust and accurate.
  • Talk to the right people at the right time. Understand where a buyer is in their sales cycle before beginning a conversation. Don’t waste time on interactions with buyers who are in the wrong stage of the sales cycle.
  • Work from your high-priority leads down. Give your most important leads the most of your time.
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Two women have a conversation.

The Psychological Side to Selling

At first thought, you may be thinking “how does psychology have anything to do with sales?” But after thinking about it for a while, you may realize that the answer is… a lot. Selling is all about getting into the mind of your prospect and persuading them (or better yet – letting them come to the conclusion themselves) that they need what you offer. Learning about how people think is a great way to better understand your prospect and it will become helpful to arm yourself with the tools to understand and sway your prospect’s thinking. Here are some tips on how you can use psychology to sell during your next sales call:   (more…)

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Communication: The Foundation of Sales

Communication: The Foundation of Sales

Communication and Sales, especially B2B sales, go hand in hand. Very few decisions in the business-to-business landscape are made without some kind of human engagement. Effective communication between salespeople and buyers is crucial. In the process of communicating with prospects, talented salespeople focus their prospecting efforts on properly qualifying, utilizing Effective probing questions, and setting up sales opportunities that have a true “reason to meet”. Let’s dive into more technical concepts about communication. 

The verbal communication process is built on four main components: encoding, medium of transmission, decoding and feedback. Encoding is the translation of thoughts. From a salesperson’s point of view, it is taking a larger, more abstract picture and breaking it down into simple terms for the buyer to easily understand. In order to enhance the encoding stage, the salesperson should focus on two things: their choice of words and tone. Using short words and phrases can keep the salesperson from rambling and losing the prospect’s interest. Having specific answers to the prospect’s questions will provide a level of transparency, ultimately leading to a more trusting prospect. The salesperson’s tone of voice should match the level of the prospect’s energy level. If the prospect seems quieter, having a loud and aggressive approach may just turn off the prospect for the rest of the conversation.   (more…)

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20 Things We’ve Learned in Sales Prospecting Over 20 Years

It’s hard to sum up 20 years of industry experience in one article, but we are going to try. We are so excited to celebrate 20 years of providing B2B Appointment Setting & Lead Generation services, as well as Integrated Marketing solutions! Over the years, we’ve gained extensive sales knowledge that helps us provide continued value to our clients. After brainstorming as a team, here’s a summary of what we learned, particularly as it relates to the prospecting bucket of the sales process: 

1. Maintain a Clean CRM.

Without a well-designed and well-utilized CRM, there is no way to organize a productive day. If you don’t know who your prospects are, how do you expect to nurture them and build brand recognition with them? If you don’t have a CRM, work on getting one, and use Excel for the time being.

2. Take Great Notes on All Prospect Conversations. 

You may have a great memory, but why would you crowd your brain up with information from hundreds of conversations or rely on it, for that matter? Reflect on the interaction and enter all relevant information they relayed to you. Before your next call or email, revisit your notes to be precise and show you were listening.

3. Quality Prospect Lists Yield Better Results. 

While purchasing a third-party list might be appealing cost-wise and a time-saver, the data will be outdated and require hours of thorough qualification work to update. Be prepared to Invest in a quality list – the growth of your business relies on it. Whether your team organically builds it in-house, purchase a list or have it vetted by a skilled call team like MarketReach, better data yields better results.  (more…)

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How to Keep Prospects Engaged on an Insurance Sales Call

How to Keep Prospects Engaged on an Insurance Sales Call

Let’s face it, keeping the attention of a prospect is hard. As a Producer, it’s sometimes difficult to differentiate from competitors. You will often encounter people who don’t have the time to talk, aren’t interested in listening to your agency’s pitch, or who will hang up immediately without giving the time to prove the value of your call. Oh, and we’re still smack in the middle of a Pandemic to add the icing on the cake! In a previous blog post, we provided some tips on how to gain a prospect’s attention during an introductory call. These tips included taking their guard down, using vocal variety, and asking smart questions. But, gaining a prospect’s attention is only the first step, getting them to stay on the phone, and engage is the next step. Consider these tips to keep a prospect on the phone once you’ve gained their attention:   (more…)

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Convenience services operator sales tips for a rebuilding year

Convenience Services Operator Sales Tips For a Rebuilding Year

Published on Vending Times Feb. 22, 2021

After a long and arduous year, 2021 brings a fresh start. Now is the perfect opportunity to revamp your company’s sales and marketing plan if you haven’t yet. All over the country, we have spoken to convenience services operators that have lost from 20% to 40% of their business due to a work-at-home environment that is a little more longer-lasting than we would have imagined. Those that have suffered the most have a better portion of their business in the white collar space. But – have hope – there are brighter days ahead, and there is something you can do about it.  (more…)

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