Prospecting for new business is essential for all sales organizations, but it becomes critically important during difficult economic times. How can you generate new leads for your sales pipeline? What are the most effective sales prospecting methods? In the last few months, we’ve asked these questions to many sales professionals, and identified some high-gain actions that work best in today’s down economy.
Strategies for Prospecting for New Business:
- Provide a free workshop about your products/services. This can be done live or via webinar. A webinar is a very cost-effective method becaus
e it negates the need and expense of travel, while allowing you to interact with many prospects. For example, STAR gave a free online sales training webinar titled “Selling During a Down Economy”.
- Use referrals. If you call a new customer, or send an email, and can say that you were referred to that customer by someone, most of the time the customer will call back. But, if you make a cold call instead, it rarely works. In today’s economy, it takes more effort to win a new customer. Referrals will help you to win more new business faster and easier than making many cold calls.
We'd like to hear from you. Which methods work best for you to generate new leads? Which methods are least effective?
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