How do you draw up a sales prospecting plan?

Answers from Frédéric Canevet, product marketing and webmarketing expert and author of the excellent blog Conseils Marketing. Thank you to Frédéric for sharing his expertise on commercial prospecting with us. Here are his views and best practices for prospecting and, above all, drawing up a sales prospecting plan.

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The evolution of commercial prospecting

Sales will change more in the next 5 years than they have in the previous 20.

Why do you say this?
Simply because, after production and accounting, sales and marketing are now undergoing their own "industrial revolution". In the early 2000s, in many companies, the basic equipment of a sales person consisted of a car, a telephone, an order book and a desktop PC.

Nowadays, the best salespeople never leave their smartphones, they have a mobile CRM and they know how to exploit the new tools available to them, they know how to use the new communication tools... This wave is now sweeping through companies, so I'd like to offer you a few ideas to help you ride it and avoid getting knocked on the head.

#SalesProspecting: sales will evolve more in the next 5 years than in the last 20 by @conseilsmkg - via @appvizer_FR
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CRM is no longer an option, it's a companion!

CRM used to have a reputation as a "gas factory", a tool designed for managers... But that's all changed! Modern CRMs are better and better designed for salespeople, and increasingly for use primarily on Smartphones. Added to this is the fact that companies are now organised in a way that requires them to have a CRM:

• The multiplicity of communication channels and exchanges means that sales reps need to remember nothing, thanks to the CRM's ability to record emails, calls and so on.
• The proliferation of prospects via lead generation tools (white papers, Adwords, etc.) means that you have to choose your priority targets and automate the rest of your business, so CRM becomes essential for managing your priorities.
• Salespeople no longer work alone in their own corner, they work with marketers who provide them with leads for which they are accountable, they work with a telemarketer who qualifies prospects on their behalf... It's by sharing information that we save time.
• The fact that the financial world has a stranglehold on companies means that reliable reporting is essential if we are to predict portfolio trends and take corrective action without being backed into a corner.

Preparing your sales force for the new prospecting tools

The salesperson has not yet become a "specialised worker" churning out quotes, but the pressure to produce is on, and it's going to become a reality. Your action plan is first to analyse your current sales organisation to optimise the key elements.

Here are some key questions:

• Do you have reliable figures (current business portfolio, forecasts, etc.)?
• Are all your prospects in a centralised database, and are they all being followed up?
• Do you have prospect "reactivation" actions?
• What are the most time-consuming tasks for sales staff?
• Do you have "competitive scorecards" to combat your competitors?
• Do you have an idea of how opportunities are converted between the different phases (information form, presentation of the solution, etc.) and how this can be improved?

Once you've done this, define your priorities and the tools at your disposal. You can use appvizer to look for "solutions" to these problems, because in addition to CRMs, the salesperson's arsenal has diversified.

Social Selling and psychology: the new weapons of Sales 2.0

At the same time as the sales profession is going digital, paradoxically the human element has never been so crucial in sales.

Although competition has never been tougher, offers are often very similar to one another... in this case, the best way to convince is to differentiate yourself through services (pre-sales support, listening, personalised demonstrations...) and relationships. The first step is to put the human touch back into your exchanges, like putting your photo in the email signature, showing images of your company, telling the story of the company and its vision... The second step is to use the Professional Social Networks, Facebook & Linkedin, to find your first prospects.

Social networks can help you to target prospects (e.g. marketing managers, buyers, etc.), but also to maintain a connection with them on a personal level: via regular publication of content, on the one hand, and via "events" on the other (e.g. extracting your Linkedin contacts and sending them your greetings by email twice a year).

Your action plan :

• Do your sales people know how to differentiate your products from the competition? Do they know how to defend the brand and the price?
• Are they really making the most of Linkedin, with a strategy of targeted additions, making contact, distributing content and, above all, making the most of their contact base?
• What image do your sales reps give your customers (look, speech, etc.)?
• How can you improve your prospects' experience of the sales cycle (e.g. by offering a goodie at the first meeting)? If you only had one customer to win over, what would you do to convince them?
• Do you keep in touch with your key customers as a matter of course (e.g. news)?

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Conclusion: SaaS, a salesperson's best friend

We are in the midst of a Sales Revolution, and the next few years are going to be exciting for sales managers and sales teams. But if you don't want to 'suffer' this digital transformation, it's essential to be ahead of the game, to anticipate it, to take advantage of it, and not be left behind.

Be curious, dare to question "good old habits", and try out new solutions!