Dunlap Discussions: Prospecting Tips from the Pros

Posted on by Kaitlin Dunlap

Are you in sales? Do you dream of closing deals left and right? Do you dream of growing your customer list and increasing your sales?

If yes, you’re in the right place.

We interviewed our team of appointment setters to learn their top tips and advice for prospecting, getting through to the decision maker, and scheduling appointments. And by the way, on average, our team has more than 15 years of experience in the industry…so they know a thing or two about a thing or two!

Join us for our new series, Dunlap Discussions: Prospecting Tips from the Pros! In today’s post, we will cover our team’s tips on preparing to make prospecting phone calls and trying to connect with the decision maker.

Preparing to make prospecting calls:

The two biggest pieces of advice from our team are

  1. Review your script/message and other supporting material
  2. Practice what you plan on saying

Being familiar with the message you will deliver and how you plan on delivering it is a key part of strong communication. Not only will it help you feel more confident, but it will help you sound more confident, too.

When someone answers your call, you only have a few seconds to make a first impression. If that first impression is not positive, there’s a good chance your call will end with CLICK. Confidence, proper preparation, and a “smile” in your voice will set you up to have a great first impression.

Connecting with the decision maker:

Getting past a gatekeeper is no easy feat – especially a gatekeeper who is good at sniffing out distractions that might not immediately benefit the decision maker.

Even though it’s tough, it’s a necessary task. Many decision makers have one (or multiple) gatekeepers, especially at large companies. When this is the case, it becomes your mission to get through the gatekeeper so you can connect directly with the decision maker.

Our team has a few tips on the matter:

  1. Build rapport with the gatekeeper and remember that they are just doing their job, like you’re just doing yours. With this being said, you don’t want people to get frustrated with you because you’re doing your job, so don’t get frustrated with gatekeepers for doing their jobs. The gatekeeper can usually be an asset to you, but you’ve got to have a foundation of good-will in place.
  2. If it’s available to you, use the decision maker’s name; if it’s not, try to determine it early on. Often, being able to utilize the decision maker’s name will give the gatekeeper a sense of comfort with you and increase their trust in what you’re saying. If you’re still in the discovery phase and don’t yet have the correct name, do your best to find it. When you do, take note of it and use it moving forward.
  3. Have a short and precise introduction of yourself and your company. Don’t be a stranger! Tell the person who answers the phone who you are – but don’t take up too much time with your introduction! Remember, you only have a few seconds to make your first impression. You don’t want that impression to be “this salesperson is only in it for him/herself”. Rather, you want the impression to be “this salesperson is calling from ___ because ___.”

Come back next week for part 2 of Dunlap Discussions: Prospecting Tips from the Pros where we’ll cover the next phase of a call – speaking with a decision maker and asking for an appointment.

Decision Maker VS. Decision Influencer – Who Do You Talk To?

Posted on by Mike Dunlap

Teleprospecting for New Business Opportunities

The epitome of early-stage business development is making your very first teleprospecting calls into a new prospect list.  As you have likely experienced with B2B business development, at the beginning of the nurturing process, it’s highly unlikely to make a sale during your first few interactions with a prospect. Sure, “right place at the right time” scenarios happen, but not frequently. However, an outcome that is more likely to occur is identifying companies that will soon be in the market for your services. Because of this, it is wise to set your expectations as “getting the sales process started” when engaging in early-stage business development.

A conversation we have almost every time we build a campaign for a client is:

Who do we need to talk to?

Most commonly, our clients’ response is:

The decision-maker!

But, is this always the best approach for getting your sales process started? Our question then becomes:

Is it realistic to get the decision maker on the phone?

Usually at this point, our clients start scratching their heads…

Typically, decision makers are difficult people to get on the phone – as a general rule of thumb, the larger the company, the more difficult it is to reach the decision maker. If the objective of your cold calling efforts is to get the sales process started, and if a mid to long-term sales process is common, why not increase your likelihood of having a productive conversation and broaden your reach to include decision influencers.  These are people who may not be directly involved with the decision making, but are knowledgeable about future plans, and likely have a measurable contribution to the future decision.

In our experience, decision influencers are more willing to take phone calls and are more available to offer insight into the company’s future plans.  Because this is early-stage business development, a major goal in a conversation is to identify future purchasing plans.  It’s too early in the process to ask for a decision to be made – you are simply trying to determine the timing of future plans. 

We use this analogy frequently inside our office:

If you are on a first date with someone, is it normal to talk about wedding plans, or should you spend time getting to know each other?  Should you learn what the likes and dislikes are of the other person?  Should you learn about their needs? 

Over time, as you nurture a relationship, you then, start talking about the serious topic of a long-term commitment.

It is perfectly acceptable to start building a relationship with the decision influencer.  During this journey, you will be able to learn more about the likes and dislikes of the company, and what the important elements are that you can build your sales strategy around.  There is a lot to be learned, but do not lose sight that you still need to ultimately connect with the decision maker.  If you are successful at building trust with the decision influencer, chances are, they will introduce you to the decision maker.

In summary, this approach is most beneficial when your target prospects are large companies with layers of people.  If you are cold calling into small and mid-sized companies, keep working to connect with decision makers as well.

How To Identify Your Target Market With Three Simple Data Points

Posted on by Kaitlin Dunlap

Part 2

As B2B marketers, business developers, and salespeople, it’s our responsibility to keep the sales pipeline full of prospects. This is no easy feat and takes a lot of hard work. When the flow of word-of-mouth leads and referrals runs dry, where do you go? How do you define your target market and find businesses that can become your future prospects?

Last week, we discussed the two ways to approach this question – the method that will be the best fit for your company depends on your starting point.

  • Starting Point #1: You have a list of current and/or past customers AND you want to continue selling to customers who are similar.
  • Starting Point #2: You are starting from scratch. This means, you do not have a list of current and/or past customers OR you have a list, but you do not want to reach this group, instead, you want to target a new segment.

If Starting Point #1 sounds like a fit for you, go back and read this post.

Maybe you’re just starting out. Or maybe your goal is to grow by breaking into a new segment. If so, Option 2 is for you. Arguably, this route can feel very intimidating. But, if you apply the same three data points we reviewed last week, geography, industry, and size, you can easily conquer identifying your target market.

Here’s how to use geography, industry, and size when you’re starting from scratch.

  1. Geography – can be defined by state, city, county, zip code, or even neighborhood
    • When you’re starting with a clean slate, it is easy to think “everyone is my prospect”. And while that might be the case, it is not an attainable lead generation tactic. You need to have a starting point, or an “A List”. If you put your blinders on and start thinking realistically, geographically, where will your first buyers come from? Often, they come from your own backyard – or neighborhood, county, city, state, etc.
  2. Industry
    • Start by filtering out industries you know you do not want to work inside of – examples include competitors and non-fits. For example, if you’re a business banker, you would want to filter out other banks.
    • Next, brainstorm the industries that are good-fits. This is where you’ll start finding your target industries. For example, if you sell industrial kitchen equipment, you will want to include industries such as restaurants, hotels, senior living facilities, hospitals, etc.
  3. Size – can be defined by employee count, revenue ranges, or physical square-footage
    • This is where you begin zeroing in and really start identifying your target market. There are multiple ways to define the size of a company – depending on your product or service, we suggest using either employee count, annualized revenue, or square-footage – sometimes, a combination of the three. For example, if you sell on-site fueling services, there’s probably a minimum number of gallons you want to fill on each site – you can use employee count to gauge the number of cars on site, which will give you an approximate number of gallons. Or, if you’re a commercial roofer, you would look at square-footage to determine buildings that have roofs that are in the size-range you want to do business with.

Whether you’re starting from scratch or have hundreds of existing customers, you can identify your target market. By using geography, industry, and size, you will be well on your way to your next selling opportunity!

How To Identify Your Target Market With Three Simple Data Points

Posted on by Kaitlin Dunlap

Part 1

Wouldn’t it be great if word-of-mouth and referrals were the only leads our businesses ever needed to survive?! Unfortunately, we know that in the business-to-business world, it’s just not feasible for a business to survive only on inbound inquires. As B2B marketers, business developers, and salespeople, we must put in a fair amount of elbow-grease to generate a flow of interest; in other words, it takes a lot of time and effort to ensure our pipelines stay full.

The responsibility of keeping a pipeline full of prospects is no easy feat. There is a world filled with companies that could be your future buyers. Where do you start? How do you identify the businesses that are your target market?

There are two ways to approach this question – the method that will be the best fit for your company depends on your starting point.

  • Starting Point #1: You have a list of current and/or past customers AND you want to continue selling to customers who are similar.
  • Starting Point #2: You are starting from scratch. This means, you do not have a list of current and/or past customers OR you have a list, but you do not want to reach this group, instead, you want to target a new segment.

If you are beginning at Starting Point #1, to identify the businesses that are your target market, you will do an exercise called “mirroring”. In databasing, mirroring is when you use a current database to create a brand-new database with records that have similar qualities – like you’re creating a “mirror image” of the current database.

Essentially, mirroring a database is taking an existing database and making a second that has the same (or very similar) criteria, to include additional records. This is a great way to grow in the same vertical. To create the highest quality mirrored list possible, you need to define three critical data points – geography, industry, and company size.

  1. Geography – can be defined by state, city, county, or zip code
    • Where are these customers located? Is their location a relevant part of their buying process?  
  2. Industry
    • Are there similar industries that your customers fall into? Maybe you have a large portion of customers who are in the manufacturing industry. Look for trends and take note of them.
  3. Size – can be defined by employee count, revenue ranges, or physical square-footage
    • Again, trends are important to note here. Think outside of the box when it comes to the size of your customers. They might vary in the number of employees they have, but maybe their annualized revenues fall into similar ranges.

After you have gathered intel from these three data points, you will have the information needed to create your mirrored list. If you have experience building databases, rock’n’roll! If not, find a trustworthy provider, such as Dunlap Marketing, that can build the database for you. When your database is built, we always suggest going back to scrub it for duplicate records, current clients, etc. Once scrubbing is finished, you will be left with a brand-new list of prospects that fall in your target marketing.

If you want to identify your target market, but you don’t have a current database to use for mirroring, Starting Point #2 is where you’ll begin. Check back next week for a guide on how to identify your target market from scratch.