How to successfully prospect new B2B clients

Written by Peter | Feb 15, 2024 4:13:36 PM

Prospecting Clients: What to consider when you're getting started

Beginning the process of prospecting new clients can feel overwhelming, leaving you unsure of where to start or what areas to focus on. However, with the right strategies, mindset and tools, you can navigate this daunting task and find success in your prospecting efforts.

There are a lot of moving parts with any level of sales prospecting. It's crucial to keep on top of your outreach activities. This is made easier with automation tools. In fact, if you use a multi-channel strategy, it's almost impossible to do it well if you do it manually. Stay organised and on top of your task list with HubSpot. Creating tasks to remind you of important actions and linking them to specific records is really simple. If you're using Sales Hub, you can easily automate tasks based on deal stages.

Select the right Client Prospecting tools

Utilise the dedicated Prospecting Workspace to manage your daily workload in one place. It's the perfect tool for sales reps to monitor goals and progress, execute tasks, and review their schedule, sales feed and prospect activity. Reps can email, track email, send video emails, call and view LinkedIn profiles all from the prospecting workspace and HubSpot.

Using HubSpot to automate your processes lets you simplify any follow-up tasks, with just one click. And to keep the momentum going with your prospects, efficiently manage follow-ups faster by delivering relevant and localised content tailored specifically to their needs. With smart tools like Dokio, creating and distributing high-quality multi-channel content has never been easier.

So let's stop procrastinating and start prospecting with confidence!

Effective prospecting — no longer an art form — can be executed repeatedly and at scale. With the support of data and technology, sellers consistently generate healthy pipelines by manufacturing relevant messages, delivered to the appropriate contacts with suitable timing, across multiple channels.

Dan Gottlieb | Gartner

There is a wealth of information to explore when it comes to the topic of B2B prospecting. One crucial element for success is having the right attitude and approach, followed by taking the necessary actions. That's why we have structured our prospecting guide into two sections, providing you with valuable insights into what is crucial and why it matters.

1. Your Client Prospecting Approach

- Empathy - shift your focus in the prospecting process to the other person. It's not about what you sell, but rather the outcome you can help your prospect achieve. This approach will attract the high-value prospects you need to succeed. If you simply talk about your product features and what you do, you're setting yourself up for failure.
- Routine - prioritise prospecting as a strategic part of your sales process. Make sure to set aside dedicated time in your calendar for prospecting. It's crucial that you don't allow any interruptions during this time. The most successful salespeople understand the importance of committing to prospecting and sticking to it.
- Commitment - it's important to make sure you commit time to the entire prospecting process. Following up is a crucial part of the process. Reaching out to a group of people without continuing to follow up with repeat contacts will never lead to any type of success.
- Confidence - have unwavering confidence in your ability to help others. Why should anyone else believe in you if you don't believe in yourself? The most successful salespeople achieve remarkable success regardless of what they sell because they have a clear objective to assist others; the product or service they offer is simply the means by which they accomplish that noble mission.

2. Your Client Prospecting Activities

- Targeting - Know your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP). This will help focus your activities on the right accounts. The example ICP below shows the type of information you need to capture when you're creating your own ICP. Knowing your ICP inside out is key to targeting the accounts that fit your products and services well.

- List Building
  
  This is a key task for anyone involved in prospecting. You can use a variety of methods and tools (Clearbit, Apollo, Cognism, Zoominfo, LinkedIn, etc.) to build prospect lists. While starting to build lists with spreadsheets is an option, it's not the most scalable solution. Purchasing lists is an option for some businesses, but it often leads to issues with poor-quality data.
  
  A more effective approach is to create your own lists. even though it can be time-consuming and tedious, it is a valuable and essential task.
  
  The main success factors to list building are:
  - verifying your data, (preferably from more than one source)
  - following appropriate email guidelines (GDPR etc)
  - using a sales automation tool
  - using an integrated CRM
  - prioritising your contacts and prospects
  - updating your CRM regularly to maintain the quality of your data
- Process - establish a prospecting process and stick to it consistently. It's important to understand that results may not be immediate, and you must give your process enough time to prove its effectiveness. As a general rule, consider executing your process for a period that is twice the length of your average buying cycle.

The Gartner Prospecting Strategies document details which stakeholders to focus on, email message templates, and what a multichannel campaign should look like. It also has pointers on nurturing buyers and re-engagement plays if you're up for a little light reading!

For instance, if it typically takes 3 months to convert a lead into a customer, commit to running your process for at least 6 months before evaluating its success. Many salespeople tend to give up on their plans prematurely, so staying dedicated and patient is crucial.

Develop your sales sequences and use your sales automation tools to work through your sales sequences, keeping track of your daily tasks with the option to enrol your prospects in a nurture campaign as appropriate.

- Prioritise Prospecting—Time-blocking is a useful tool for establishing a routine. Creating a daily plan will help you identify the best B2B prospecting techniques to focus on. By blocking out specific, uninterrupted time for prospecting, you ensure that you stay on track and avoid any last-minute, haphazard approaches that could lead to less-than-optimal results.
  
  Use SMART Goals - they must be Specific, Measurable, Actionable, Realistic, and Time-Bound

- Qualify, qualify, qualify and do it quickly! There's nothing more frustrating than having "prospects" in your pipeline who consume your time without ever becoming customers. If you want to maintain a healthy pipeline, you need to dedicate more time to qualified prospects. It's crucial to prioritise quality over quantity!

- MQLs - don't solely depend on the Marketing Department for leads. While it's fantastic to have leads provided, top-performing sales folk understand the importance of taking ownership and actively seeking out leads and prospects independently.
- Social Selling - it's important to diversify your lead generation strategies and include social media in your activities. While social media can be a valuable source of leads, it's important to acknowledge how much time and effort is required to make an impact on these platforms. Tools that help automate your LinkedIn prospecting like Expandi deliver productivity gains of more than 35%! Investment in this technology will provide an excellent ROI for your B2B sales team and expand your sales funnel.

Utilise the phone - Don't believe the misconception that "the phone doesn't work any more" While the phone may not be as effective as it once was, it still holds great value. Engaging in conversations with leads and prospects by phone allows you to quickly qualify them and exceed their initial expectations regarding helpfulness and assistance. Cold calling can take up a lot of time; however, calling prospects that are a good fit for your products and services and fit your ICP is certainly worthwhile, and you have a high probability of being able to help (which is the purpose of the initial connect call.)
- A phone first-approach allows salespeople who excel at phone conversation to allocate their time efficiently. It's important to also include emails targeted at prospects who not not answer the phone. This type of sequence gets sales reps on the phone promptly, leading to more meaningful conversations and ultimately more appointments scheduled. It's a straightforward approach that yields positive results.
- Sales Hub Calling has a useful feature giving you the option to add call scripts for the sales team. You can select, 'discovery call', 'cold call', 'referral call' and generate the relevant script.
- For a customisable call script template visit this link.
- For Free Prospecting Sales Call training why not apply to the HubSpot Pipeline bootcamp?

Follow Up - Promptly following up is essential, and it may seem simple, but many sales opportunities are lost because salespeople fail to respond quickly when leads or prospects express interest in moving forward. Unfortunately, some salespeople are hesitant to follow up out of fear of being perceived as overbearing. However, if being proactive helps close more deals, then it's something we all should be doing! Consider using video in your email to personalise your message further.

Top Tip - Use A Multi-Channel Prospecting Strategy

Multi-Channel Prospecting is simply utilising various sales channels to connect with your leads. For example, you could start with a cold email as your initial outreach, followed by a personalised message on LinkedIn or a direct call. This strategic approach of multi-channel prospecting enables you to effectively engage, inform, and foster relationships with your target audience.

The infographic below is a good example of a multi-channel prospecting cadence. The timing and the type of outreach is something that needs to be tested and adjusted to establish what works best for your prospects, in your region.

Through this process, you should be able to establish how individual prospects like to be contacted while bearing in mind you want to limit the outreach so that it doesn't become problematic. As a rule of thumb, 4 attempts at calling a prospect (across 2-3 weeks) is enough to establish if there is interest at that point in time. Consider the Buyers Pyramid as you pursue your leads.

For a more in-depth exploration into prospecting, be sure to check out our comprehensive Sales Prospecting Guide below;

If you have questions on this article or would like to chat about Sales Consulting Services, please get in touch, we would be more than happy to arrange an obligation free chat with you.