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Sales prospect | How winners find prospects

Andréa Coutu

Sales skills

2007-02-26 00:01:47

Sales prospects are key to your business's success. Sales prospects are the people who may be interested in buying from you. And it's your job to turn them into leads, so that you can begin the sales process.

But where do you find prospects?
  • Mailing lists
  • Direct mail lists
  • Tradeshow lists
  • Event lists
  • Magazine subscription lists
  • Your own newsletter subscription list
  • Your in-house list of people who have contacted you
  • Business cards from tradeshows
  • Your contacts
  • Referrals
  • Cold calling
By putting together a campaign that targets these prospects, you can figure out who's actually interested in the services and solutions you offer. Then you can work on moving those leads further down the sales pipeline.

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Comments

I noticed that you didn't list cold calling as a way to reach out to those prospects. Is that coming next? When it comes to cold calling, some people like it and find it effective while others (me) hate it with a passion and avoid it like the plague. I have my ways of generating prospects and a list of leads. I have a small information packet I send out to each and I make sure to point out my business blog. I'd rather build up to the business relationship rather than appear from out of nowhere and say, "Hey, you want to buy some of my specialized knowledge about XYZ - I am after all a consultant!" The Golden Rule applies here. I don't like it when my business gets cold called. Why should I expect any different from my prospects?

— Justin Beller

I just added cold calling. I'm not really a fan of cold calling, but it can be very effective for some people. Here's my article on "No cold calling and a successful business": http://www.consultantjournal.com/blog/no-cold-calling-and-a-successful-business (It's also linked from the cold calling article above.)

— Andrea

These are all good methods for generating leads. I can't say enough about word of mouth. A good chunk of my students are either family or friends of long-time students, while another group are transfers from fellow teachers. Cold calling - I'm not a fan either. I think it really depends upon the industry. In my field, it seems like people find music teachers through the online teacher association directories or word of mouth.

— Rhona-Mae