Here’s some news: active prospecting isn’t dead. It’s more alive than ever and providing amazing results for companies that have implemented this type of process in their B2B sales .
In this article, we will better understand what active prospecting is, where to start, the channels to use it, as well as tips on free tools. Enjoy!
What is active prospecting in B2B sales?
Active (or outbound) prospecting is the act of actively france business email list seeking out customers and “hunting” for opportunities. It involves approaching the customer in an intrusive manner, without the lead expecting to be contacted, unlike the inbound process, where the sales work is passive.
Therefore, active prospecting is often frowned upon due to its interruptive nature. Who likes receiving a call from a real estate agent they’ve never heard of?
However, this type of dissatisfaction occurs because the prospector is contacting the wrong people. Prospecting is nothing more than an attempt to bring together two people with common interests.
The main means or channels to do this are:
the phone,
the email and
door-to-door (the famous PAP).
Each channel has its own peculiarities, making its use appropriate in a certain type of situation.
In traditional active prospecting, the salesperson was responsible for prospecting, qualifying and closing the deal. As a result, the salesperson had to go out of their way to secure a deal.
This ended up taking a lot of time and generating fewer opportunities within markets with high potential for the acquisition of products and services.
With the phenomenon established by Aaron Ross , author of the bestseller Predictable Revenue and responsible for increasing Salesforce's revenue by 100 million dollars, this type of prospecting was modernized.
Aaron brought a straightforward process, teaching how to hand over prospecting to a specialized team of pre-sales and sales people, all with specific and highly delegated roles. This way, it is possible to implement a process that generates predictable revenue and creates a sales growth machine.
In this new process, the gap between marketing and sales was filled and understanding the prospect and knowing whether they fit with your business or not became an important point for defining prospecting guidelines.
Currently, several companies actively seek out customers and obtain excellent results in their sales.
But where do I start doing active prospecting?
The answer is simple and straightforward: start with market intelligence . It is essential when starting an active prospecting process.
Through it, it is possible to outline strategies based on solid information and with a greater chance of guaranteeing an effective result.
In this step, you will collect and analyze relevant data and information about your target audience and various factors that make a difference when it comes to your company's strategic planning.
This way, you get to know your target audience in more detail and in greater depth, you know what the main problems they face are and what is available on the market to meet these needs.
To start a market intelligence work, you can ask questions such as:
Which segment do we serve the most?
In which segment does my company have the most satisfied customers?
In which segments do we close the most deals?
By applying market intelligence, your company has a competitive edge and can explore the area of operation and probable opportunities with its target audience.
Furthermore, it is important to map the target audience, competition, trends and the environment in which your company operates to better define strategies and make decisions.
And you can't ignore the potential of your market. Your area of operation may be twice as big as you think! That's why it's essential to know the size of the niche you'll be serving.
IMPORTANT TIP: With Econodata's Free Market Calculator , you will generate advanced analyses by combining different filters to better understand the distribution of your market, in addition to discovering trends and opportunities for new business.
Do you already know your ideal customer profile?
One of the first rules for successful prospecting is to define the Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) .
This definition is the basis for your targeting strategy, lead generation and approach preparation.
An easy way to start is to look at your own customer base and do the following exercise, answering questions like:
In which segment do we have the most satisfied customers?
In which segment do we have the most deals?
Which segments are most likely to close with us?
In which segments do we have good testimonials, case studies or important reference clients?
With the answers in hand, try to identify similar characteristics and outline a profile of the ideal customer for your company.
This method will help focus your sales team's efforts on prospects who are more prepared and more likely to close a deal.
We need to talk about Outbound versus Inbound
Over the years, the sales process has evolved. Both inbound and outbound methods have their pros and cons:
Outbound actively searches for customers using methods such as cold calling, cold email (cold calling 2.0) and social media (mainly LinkedIn) ,
While Inbound invests in a more passive approach through content that attracts the target's attention.
When you create an ebook with interesting content for your audience and collect data through a form on a landing page, you generate leads via inbound. If your strategy involves manually searching for prospects in different data sources and platforms, for example, you use outbound to search for leads.