Professional Selling: MKT 3580Chapter 9: Building a Customer Base

Learning Objectives

How to develop a prospect base

Criteria for qualifying prospects

Managing prospects

Some Quick Definitions Prospecting = Identifying potential customers

Prospect = Potential customer that meets the qualification criteria established by your company

Prospect base = Made up of current customers and potential customers

Importance of Prospecting: Attrition What are some sources?

Customer may have a one-time need

Customer may move outside salesperson’s territory

Firm may go out of business or merge

Sales may be lost to the competition

Companies may lose of customer base annually

Girard’s

Ferris Wheel

Prospecting is necessary to…

Improve the quality of prospects

Increase number of people who board the Ferris wheel

Shorten sales cycle by determining which prospects are “qualified”

Sources of Prospects Referrals & Centers of influence

Directories

Trade publications

Trade shows & events

Telemarketing/email

Direct-response advertising & sales letters

Websites

Computerized databases

Cold calling

Networking

Educational seminars

Non-sales employees

Referrals Prospect recommended by current satisfied

customer or one familiar with product

At close of presentation, ask who else could benefit from product

Centers of influence: person who does not make decision but has influence on those that do

Opinion leaders

market mavens

Computer Databases = Your firm’s existing databases

= Lists available from variety of sources

Purchasing databases can be costly

Not all databases are equal, some have greater pull

Cold Calling without referralsNew salespeople rely on this method to build prospect base

Must be strategically planned

Prelude to in-person appointment

Way to introduce yourself and company to prospect

Networking Making [& profiting from] personal connections

Networking guidelines Meet as many people as you can Tell them what you do Do not do business while networking Offer business card Edit contacts/conduct follow-ups

Three Types of s

Networking within your social circle

Qualifying Prospects

Does the prospect my product?

Does the prospect have the to buy my product?

Does the prospect have the to buy my product?

Does the prospect have the to buy my product?

Managing the Prospect Base While accumulating data is nice,

Not just who bought what, when, how much, etc. Sales firms need to know about the prospect’s

Industry, competitors, marketplace, goals

So what do you do with all this info?Have to organize it to get any value from it

Collecting & Organizing Prospect Info How many prospects do you want? How do you keep everyone happy? Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Popular CRM systems:

Salesforce.com Oracle NetSuite Microsoft

Portfolio Model for Classifying Prospects

The Sales Process/Funnel Model

• Cold Call 1000 people

• 100 actually listen

• 25 of those like what you say

• 10 of those become customers