Prospecting

Prospecting is the first of two elements where the primary goal is to identify sales opportunities. This element refers to identifying new prospective customers who have a need that you can address.

The process begins with summarizing from your strategy and market analysis activities your target markets and customers. In B2B sales, this normally means defining target organizations by specific criteria such as size, industry sector and / or geography, as well as target contacts within these organizations by job function.

Once your target prospects are identified, you need to define and test a process for initiating contact to introduce your company and products, and to invite prospects to begin a relationship with your company. It is rare for a prospect to express their real needs and concerns in the initial introduction. It is better to focus initially on learning about the prospect company and contacts, providing value of interest to them, and making it easy for them to become part of your relationship development program.

A relationship development program should have two components. One is managed by your marketing communications team and comprises newsletters, webinar, seminar invitations, and other methods of touching contacts regularly. 
The second is managed by the sales team members and comprises calls, emails, visits, birthday cards, meal invitations and other personal relationship building tactics.

To record and manage your prospecting and all other sales activities, you must implement a customer relationship management (CRM) system, such as Salesforce or SalesLogix.