Prospecting helps you connect and work with potential customers whose needs and interests align with your solution. It gives you perspective on your prospects’ pain points, ensuring that you’re getting in touch with contacts who will be receptive to your value proposition.
It’s extremely effective, too. Recent research shows that more than 7 out of 10 buyers want
to hear from salespeople early on in the buying process, and 82% of buyers
accept meetings when a salesperson reaches out first. Moreover, top-performing
salespeople who engage in sales prospecting generate nearly three times more
sales meetings than those who don’t prospect.
When you prospect successfully, you can schedule meetings
with better-fit leads: that is, people who have a legitimate need for or
interest in your offering. I’ve found that these good-fit customers aren’t just
more likely to buy — they generally provide more long-term business too. These
leads become particularly valuable customers, as they’re much less likely than
their worse-fit counterparts to churn shortly after closing a deal.
But how can you identify good-fit customers? Well, that
typically starts by asking the right questions. For more insight on that
process, check out this article.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tKqK8gsM-1E
Prospects are also often conflated with another type of
contact: leads. As a salesperson, you need to be able to distinguish between
the two. You and your team will be connecting with both when prospecting, and
each one requires a distinct approach.
Though they might seem similar — for one, they both exist
around the top of the sales funnel — there are some important distinctions
between prospects and leads. Let's take a look at how they differ.
Lead vs. Prospect
Leads are potential customers who’ve expressed interest in
your company through behaviors like visiting a website, subscribing to a blog,
or signing up for a free trial. In contrast, prospects are leads who have been
researched further and qualified. This means they have qualities, potential
needs, and interests that align with the solution you offer.
For instance, let’s say your business sells project
management software for growing construction firms. If the owner of a
mom-and-pop construction operation that recently scored a big contract with a
fast food chain subscribes to your blog, you’d probably treat them as a
prospect — not just a lead.
Depending on their qualifications and fit, a prospect (not a
lead) can be classified as a potential customer, even if they have had limited
or no interaction with your company. In contrast, if someone outside of your
target market signs up for a free trial, you might consider them a lead, but
they’d hardly qualify as a prospect.
That said, despite their differences, the endgame when
interacting with prospects and leads is the same: to nurture them until they
buy your product or service. That process begins the moment you start
prospecting, and it doesn’t end until you close a deal.
But how do you even begin prospecting? Below, I’ve put
together a simple guide for getting started. Then, I’ll cover some proven tips
for finding good-fit prospects who will be more likely to close.
How to Prospect Effectively
- Research
your prospect and their business to gauge whether you can provide value.
- Prioritize
your prospects based on their likelihood of becoming customers.
- Prepare
a personalized pitch for each prospect.
- Craft
the perfect first touch — and ensure you're helping, not selling.
- Iterate
on your prospecting process to understand what you can improve.
Unproductive prospecting can be a huge waste of time, and
certain approaches have proven to be more effective than others. To get the
most out of your efforts, I’d suggest leveraging the inbound framework — a
method that you can apply to virtually any sales process.
That said, the most productive prospecting method for you is
exactly that: the one for you. The prospecting frameworks, tactics,
and concepts that best align with your skill set and offering won’t be exactly
the same as those of all of your peers.
That’s why I’ve also weaved in personal prospecting tips and
tricks from the best salespeople I know. Pick and choose what works best for
you — and if you’re not sure, don’t be afraid to experiment!
1. Research your prospect and their business to gauge
whether you can provide value.
You’re going to hear this again and again throughout this
post, but you can't prospect effectively if you don’t qualify your prospects. Qualification is by far the most
important aspect of prospecting. After all, you can’t provide value to someone
if you have no idea what’s valuable to them in the first place.
You should look to accomplish a few goals in this stage of
prospecting:
- Determine
whether the prospect is workable.
- Qualify
and begin prioritizing prospects.
- Find
opportunities to develop a connection through personalization, rapport
building, and trust development.
2. Prioritize your prospects based on their likelihood of
becoming customers.
It might go without saying, but some prospects are more
likely to close than others. So, if you want to save yourself time and maximize
your deal potential, you need to know where to dedicate most of your time and
effort — and that starts with prioritizing the right prospects.
How you prioritize your prospects will likely be specific to
factors like your role, your vertical, and your sales org’s preferences. But
regardless of those elements, the fundamental concept always boils down to one
common process: creating a few buckets of prospects and then focusing on one at
a time.
Scoring Potential Prospects
Prospects are usually qualified according to certain
dimensions, meaning that certain characteristics, including factors such as
deal size or timing, are deemed more important than others when identifying
viable prospects. Those elements hold more weight when qualifying.
For example, say your sales org prioritizes the size of a
deal above all else. In that case, deal size might account for 70% of what
makes an ideal prospect. If timing is considered a relevant — but less crucial
— factor, it might account for just 10% of what makes an ideal prospect.
Once you’ve assigned a percentage to each quality, you can
assign a score to each dimension for each potential prospect. In other words,
you would assign a value between zero and 100 to each dimension based on how
well a lead fits your ideal picture of that quality.
So if a lead’s potential deal size was perfect, you would
assign them a score of 100 for that quality, and if it was an absolutely awful
fit, you would assign them a score of zero.
Next, multiply the score you gave each lead for each quality
by the weight percentage you’ve assigned to that characteristic. So if a lead’s
potential deal size was 50 out of 100, and you’ve assigned that quality a
percentage of 70%, that would add 35 to the potential prospect’s score.
Finally, add up the products of each quality’s score and
percentage to determine the prospect’s total score. From there, you can put
together a list, ranking each potential prospect by their viability and
allowing you to prioritize your prospecting efforts.
Obviously, that’s a lot to keep track of on your own.
Thankfully, there are plenty of lead management resources that can do this
automatically.
3. Prepare a personalized pitch for each prospect.
Every prospect is unique — with their own unique
backgrounds, interests, needs, and preferences — and absolutely none of them
want to be treated like just another name on a list.
That’s why you need to gather in-depth information on your
prospects that will help you put together effective, personalized pitches and
conduct thoughtfully targeted outreach.
Of course, you can’t do that without understanding what your
prospects care about. There are a few ways I’ve found that can help you figure
that out. That includes:
- Taking
a look at the prospect’s blog to learn what they care about through the
articles they’re writing and publishing.
- Identifying
and reviewing their social media profiles. Do they have recent updates or
new posts?
- Reviewing
the “About Us” page on their company website.
Obviously, that list isn’t exhaustive. There are lots of
other ways you can get a pulse on key elements to shape your efforts, including
exploring your prospect’s interests, what their business does, how it’s
performing, the state of its industry, where it stands in its competitive
landscape, and common pain points similar companies face.
Once you’ve learned more about your prospect’s business and
role, you need to find a reason to connect. Do you have mutual connections? Has
there been a trigger event? Have they recently visited your website? If so,
which search terms drove them to your site? Which pages did they look at?
If you want to get more high-level with your prep, you can
create a decision map to outline the prospect’s options and end goals. That can
help you better handle any objections and personalize a pitch that aligns with
their primary objectives.
4. Craft the perfect first touch — and ensure you’re
helping, not selling.
As I just touched on, personalization is key to crafting an
effective pitch — but its utility isn’t limited to what you say. If you want to
prospect effectively, you need to personalize how you start
your conversations.
Regardless of whether you call or email, your outreach needs
to be tailored to suit your prospect’s business, goals, needs, industry, and
personal preferences. To do so, keep the following tips in mind when contacting
a prospect:
- Personalize. Reference
a specific problem that the prospect is encountering and offer a specific
solution targeting that problem.
- Stay
relevant and timely. Ensure that the issue the prospect is trying
to solve is still relevant to them and their team.
- Be
human. No one likes to communicate with a robot. Adding in
details like wishing someone a happy holiday or conveying how awesome you
think their company’s product is are real touches that allow us to
establish a connection on a deeper level.
- Help,
don’t sell. Provide value and ask for nothing in return. This
process isn’t about us. It’s about them. For example, instead of
scheduling a follow-up meeting, you could offer to conduct an audit of
their digital media presence and get back to them with your findings in a
week.
- Keep
it casual. Remember that this is just a conversation. Stay
natural, and avoid sounding sales-y as much as possible. The key to
prospecting is that we’re never selling. We’re simply determining if both
parties could mutually benefit from a relationship.
5. Iterate on your prospecting process to understand what
you can improve.
Effective prospecting isn’t stagnant. You need to constantly
track, learn from, and ultimately improve upon your process, constantly
refining your approach and finding a groove that will consistently deliver
results.
Every time you engage in prospecting, keep notes throughout
the process. Assess which activities generated the most value and which wasted
time. Specifically, after each contact with a prospect, assess how well you:
- Uncovered
challenges.
- Helped
create well-defined goals.
- Confirmed
availability of budget.
- Understood
the decision-making process.
- Determined
consequences of inaction.
- Identified
potential results of success.
This self-reflection will help you improve your sales prospecting techniques in the future.
Now, let’s look at some of the key skills you need to
develop if you want to be an effective prospector.
Sales Prospecting Skills
1. The Ability to Identify Target Accounts
Daryll Dorman, Sales Manager at AllMax Software, says, "To be effective prospectors,
sales reps need to understand what their target account looks like. You can
analyze your current customer base to figure out the best size using filters
from HubSpot.
“From there, you should use tools like LinkedIn to gather
the different stakeholders you'll need to work with. Tailor your conversation
to the role you are targeting and be consistent. You will achieve success
before you know it!”
2. Effective Listening Skills
Kristy Galea, Director Of Sales at Cadence SEO, says, "One skill sales reps need to
develop is effective listening — I see so many reps prepare decks to pitch, but
if they are not listening to the pain points of the prospect first, then the
fully-prepared deck has zero value.
“Effective listening, understanding, and building value
around what the buyer is communicating is essential in building the
relationship and winning the business in a positive way.”
3. Product Knowledge
Mike Sadowski, Founder & CEO of Brand24, says, “For me, the most important one is product
knowledge. You've got to know your stuff inside and out. It's not just rattling
off features, but understanding how you solve real problems for customers. When
you reach out, you need to quickly explain how you'll add value to their
business.”
4. Time Management
Sadowski also says, “Time management is also key.
Prospecting is a numbers game, and you've got to juggle multiple leads at
different stages. It's about finding that balance between quantity and quality.
You can't spend all day on one lead, but you also can't just blast generic
messages to thousands.”
5. Integrity
Dennis Sanders, Founder of Burning Daily, says, "I still believe that integrity,
as a virtue, is your most potent weapon. It is a bedrock upon which lasting
client relationships are built and the cornerstone of sustainable success for
you in your sales career.
"Any amateur sales rep can chase quick wins through
half-truths and exaggerations, but those who are honest about their product or
services can create long-term partnerships of trust with their prospects.
“One should view honesty not as a constraint but as a
liberating force. When you're transparent, you're not just selling a product;
you're selling trust. And trust in business is the most valuable currency. Your
word is your bond. Break it, and you're not just losing a deal — you're
poisoning the well of future opportunities.”
6. Empathy
Raviraj Hegde, SVP of Growth & Sales at Donorbox, says, “Empathy is critical. Understanding a
prospect's pain points and seeing the world through their eyes helps build
trust. When I coach sales teams, I emphasize the importance of active
listening. By truly hearing what the prospect is saying — and sometimes what
they’re not saying — a rep can tailor their approach, making the conversation
feel more like a collaboration than a pitch.”
7. Perseverance
Michael Nemeroff, CEO & Co-Founder of Rush Order Tees, says, "Unyielding perseverance is a
must. If they haven’t asked you to stop calling yet, you haven’t called them
enough. Prospecting is by far the hardest part of the job because you hear ‘no’
all day long. You can’t let those responses slow you or emotionally deplete
you.
“The very best in the business have a solid routine to help
them control the negative influences in their lives. They might read, listen to
podcasts, or find other ways to manage their stress and recharge their
batteries so they can come back fresh each time after rejection.”
8. Learning From Feedback
Cesar Cobo, Director of Operations at Webris, says, "Successful sales reps excel at learning
from feedback. Actively seeking out feedback from different sources, such as
prospects, peers, or managers, can be a game-changer.
"Imagine a scenario where a sales rep receives
constructive criticism from a prospect about their pitch. Instead of taking it
personally, they use that feedback to tweak their approach, making future
pitches more compelling and tailored.
"This openness to external insights allows them to
refine their methods continuously, leading to improved engagement and
conversion rates. Feedback isn‘t just about identifying mistakes — it’s also
about recognizing strengths. When managers or colleagues provide positive
feedback, it reinforces what’s working well, enabling reps to double down on
those strategies.
“For example, if a manager praises a sales rep for their
excellent follow-up technique, the rep can make that a standard part of their
approach. The constant loop of learning and adjusting makes a well-rounded,
effective prospector who can navigate diverse sales scenarios with agility and
confidence.”
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Get Your Free GuideLearn more
Sales Prospecting Tips
- Look
at your prospects’ career pages.
- Use
the GPCTBA/CI sales qualification framework.
- Classify
prospects with ratings.
- Subscribe
to your prospects’ blogs.
- Keep
track of your prospects on X (formerly Twitter).
- Batch
prospecting sessions.
- Use
a healthy mix of email and phone communication.
- Use
the BASHO sequence for emails and calls.
- Follow-up
after a closed-lost deal.
- Thoroughly
understand your vertical.
- Ask
for referrals.
1. Look at your prospects’ career pages.
Understanding a company’s priorities and direction can
inform smarter, more targeted prospecting. If you have a pulse on where a
business is investing or growing, you can get a better sense of its specific
interests and challenges — helping you shape more thoughtful, specific value
propositions. But where can you readily access that kind of information?
Well, a company’s careers page is a good place to start. For
example, let’s say you sell a suite of marketing solutions that includes a
content management system. If you see that a company has job listings for
multiple content marketing roles, you can tailor your pitch to highlight the
benefits of your CMS.
Alternatively, if your prospect works for a public company,
you can also look at its annual financial report (Form 10-K). This form
includes a section called “Risk Factors,” which you can use to see whether
there’s alignment between the company’s stated business challenges and your
product offering.
2. Use the GPCTBA/C&I sales qualification framework.
There are countless sales qualification frameworks, but the
HubSpot team uses one called the GPCTBA/C&I framework (and they promise that it
sounds more confusing than it is). This framework includes the following
components:
- GPCT (Goals,
Plans, Challenges, Timeline).
- BA (Budget
and Authority).
- C&I (Negative
Consequences and Positive Implications).
Here is a breakdown of sample questions to ask potential
customers for each part of the framework:
Armed with this comprehensive framework, you can focus on
creating a highly targeted, relevant list of questions, helping to ensure that
every prospect you talk to meets the criteria of your fine-tuned customer
profile.
3. Classify prospects with ratings.
Another strategy that I’ve found can be particularly
effective is to classify prospects qualitatively with respect to their
suitability. You can rate them as high, medium, and low, like so:
High
- Matches
all criteria of your customer persona
- Has
a clear business challenge that aligns with your product offering
- Has
a high level of interaction with your website or social media accounts
- You
are able to connect with a decision-maker
- You
have a mutual connection or common interest (i.e., a mutual friend on
LinkedIn, or you graduated from the same college)
Recommended effort: Five touchpoints every other
business day
Medium
- Matches
some elements of your customer persona
- Has
a clear business challenge that aligns with your product offering
- Has
some level of interaction with your website or social media accounts
- You
are able to connect with an influencer within the organization
Recommended effort: Four touchpoints every other
business day
Low
- Doesn’t
match your customer persona
- Unclear
business challenge
- Has
had limited or no interaction with your website or social media accounts
- You
are unable to connect with an influencer or decision-maker
Recommended effort: Three touchpoints every other
business day
4. Subscribe to your prospects’ blogs.
Your prospects’ blogs can be a great source of intel into
their needs and interests. Of course, reading countless articles can be highly
time-consuming — but it’s possible to skim through the latest updates and still
glean useful insights. Here’s my approach:
- I
start by opening each interesting post in a new tab.
- Then,
I quickly skim each post.
- After
skimming through all of the posts, I narrow it down to the most
interesting 20-30 posts and read these more fully. Importantly, it’s not
just about what I personally find interesting: I always try to put myself
in my prospect’s shoes as I’m reviewing these articles, searching for pain
points or trig
- Finally,
I use the most interesting, relevant information I find in the articles to
tailor an email or a call to a prospect, helping me craft more context
around the prospect’s situation and maximize the impact of that initial
contact.
5. Keep track of your prospects on X (formerly Twitter).
Nowadays, everyone’s on X (formerly Twitter) — including
your prospects. Creating a list of top-priority prospects on Twitter can be a
great way to track trigger events and streamline the research process. Here’s
how to set it up on X’s mobile app:
- Click
your profile picture in the upper left-hand corner, and then click
“Lists.”
- Now,
click the blue button with a list icon and a plus sign in the bottom
right-hand corner.
- Name
the list and then set it to “Private” so only you can access it.
- Finally,
add the prospects you want to track to your list. Just search for their
accounts and click the button that says “Add.”
Note: You may want to make separate lists for
your high-priority prospects, medium-priority prospects, and low-priority
prospects.
Now that you’ve created your first list, you can easily
monitor your prospects’ activity using a tool like HubSpot Social Inbox. HubSpot’s Social Inbox color codes
your customers and leads and helps you prioritize your engagement. You can see
what type of content resonates with your prospects by tracking their
interactions, conversations, and new follows.
Once you’re set up, just watch as this feed populates with
prospect activity. You can check your feed every morning and afternoon to see
if any trigger events have occurred that could offer a valuable opportunity for
you to connect.
6. Batch prospecting sessions.
Another one of my favorite approaches is to batch my
prospecting sessions. Batch sessions for two to three hours at a time, and take
a quick five-minute break between each hour.
Use your phone or an egg timer to set a countdown for 20
minutes, 30 minutes, or 45 minutes, depending on how much time you scheduled
for the call.
Make sure to end the call when the timer goes off, and then
use five minutes for following up, five minutes for updating notes and
administrative tasks in your CRM, and a final five minutes to prep for your next call.
7. Use a healthy mix of email and phone communication.
When it comes to establishing contact, there’s no
one-size-fits-all solution. Two of the most common modes of communication are
email and phone — and while they both have pros and cons, the most effective
approach is generally a healthy mix of the two.
Indeed, I’ve found that some salespeople tend to prefer cold
emailing, while others will dive into cold calls. It’s important to go with
what you feel most comfortable with, while also recognizing the value of
mediums that may come less naturally to you.
First, let’s take a look at the pros and cons of email
communication:
Email
Pros |
Email
Cons |
Emails
are visual, and they allow prospects to consider the offer on their own time. |
Email
is a cluttered space, so it may be harder to grab a prospect’s attention. |
Emails
provide prospects with adequate time to research your company and product. |
Emails
are easily deleted or forgotten. |
Emails
can easily be forwarded to key stakeholders who might be a better fit for you
to speak with. |
You may
have to follow up multiple times before you get a response. |
Now, let’s look at the pros and cons of phone
communication:
Phone
Pros |
Phone
Cons |
Phone
calls are less common than email, so they are more likely to grab a
prospect’s attention. |
Some
prospects may feel overwhelmed by a call and thus be less inclined to
consider a pitch or schedule a second meeting. |
Calls
immediately establish a more intimate connection and offer salespeople the
chance to develop rapport. |
While
intimate, calls can be seen as intrusive, especially when unscheduled. |
Calls
are often more timely than email communication, and they can reduce the time
it takes to close a deal. |
There’s
no guarantee a prospect will pick up the phone, and voicemail can often be as
cluttered as email, depending on volume. |
Successful first-touch strategies often incorporate both
email and phone to take advantage of the pros of both while minimizing the
cons.
8. Use the BASHO sequence for emails and calls.
Sales leader Jeff Hoffman pioneered an approach known as the BASHO sequence, which advocates for the following
combination of voicemails or emails to build connections with prospects:
- Voicemail
/ Email: Wait for 24 hours.
- Voicemail
/ Email: Wait for 48 hours.
- Voicemail
/ Email: Wait for 72 hours.
- Voicemail
/ Email: Wait for five days.
- Breakup
Voicemail / Email.
Alternate between voicemail and email, with unique messaging
each time. This technique allows prospects to consider your offer, conduct
their own research, and respond at a time that is convenient for them.
But, how do you leave a voicemail or send an email that
prospects will actually want to respond to? Let’s dive into the do’s and don’ts
of each communication method below.
Tips for writing a warm email
If you’re looking to send a first-touch email that gets
opened, here are some essentials to include:
- Engaging
subject line. The subject line has to pique the prospect’s
interest while avoiding cliché hooks.
- Personalized
opening line. You should begin your cold email by saying
something about the prospect, not about your business. After all, this
process is about finding the prospect’s pain points and determining a way
to add value to their business.
- Clear
connection. Now, you have to make a connection. In your opening,
the prospect learned why you’re reaching out to them, but now they need to
know why they should care about what you do.
- Concrete
call-to-action. Suggest a concrete time to connect or ask a
specific question to make it clear that the ball is in their court. Some
of my favorite lines are: “Do you have ten minutes to catch up tomorrow?”
or “Are you available for a 30-minute call on Tuesday between 9 and 11
a.m.?”
You can also try sending a calendar invite instead of an
email to get straight to the point. In the description section, you can type up
a personalized message like this:
Author of the award-winning sales book Snap SellingJill Konrath suggests another helpful approach: You
can schedule a short, five-minute meeting to get your foot in the door with
prospects whose calendars are particularly swamped.
Tips for a Prospecting Call
If you decide to call a prospect, I’d suggest following this
basic structure for the call:
- Establish
rapport. Don’t shy away from personal conversations, like asking
how a prospect’s weekend was or what team they’re rooting for in the game
tonight. These intimate touches can help you develop more meaningful
relationships with prospects and enhance your likeability, in turn
(hopefully) making them more likely to buy from you.
- Leverage
pain points. Dive into their pain points during the call. By the
end of the conversation, you should know all of their primary business
challenges and the underlying causes associated with them. Once you have
an understanding of these key issues, you can better position your product
or services to address those pain points.
- Create
curiosity. Ask more than you tell. This conversation is about
them, about understanding their needs and problems. The less you talk
about your business and product, and the more you ask questions about them
and their business, the more your prospect will be interested in hearing
the final pitch.
- Wrap
it up. Find a time 24-48 hours after the discovery call to book a follow-up meeting. Try
this line: “Would you have 30 minutes to follow up this week? My
colleague, John, will join us — he’s an expert in X, Y, Z. My calendar’s
open; what time works best for you?”
9. Follow-up after a closed-lost deal.
Rejection is never fun, but it can be useful. Bryan
Kreuzberger, founder of the lead generation company Breakthrough Email, sends a follow-up email if prospects
respond with a rejection. The purpose of this email is simple: Learning. You
can use a rejection as an opportunity to better understand how you can improve
your sales techniques by following this template:
Hi [prospect name],
Thanks for your email. I just closed your file. I have a
quick question as a final follow-up. Why aren’t you interested? Was it
something I did?
If there is any way I can improve, let me know. I’m
always looking for input.
Thanks for your help,
[Name]
I’ve found that sending a simple email like this can make a
big difference, helping sales teams identify flaws in their processes while
also maintaining a positive relationship with the prospect.
10. Thoroughly understand your vertical.
Sales prospecting is about identification and consultation.
In other words, you need to be able to identify prospects who will be receptive
to your efforts and frame yourself as a consultative resource to build trust
instantly in your initial conversations.
Your ability to deliver on both of those elements starts
with developing a thorough understanding of the space in which you operate. You
need to know your vertical inside and out — the nature of the industries you
serve, how these companies generally operate, relevant technical jargon and
concepts, and the most common issues that your prospects run into.
That starts with research. Once you start operating within
an industry or serving businesses of a particular scale, get a pulse on the
more technical aspects of the space. As best you can, learn how the products or
services that the businesses you connect with work.
It’s also important to learn industry-specific terminology
that you can reference when talking with prospects. That will help establish
you as an authority in your prospects’ space (instead of sounding like just
some random salesperson).
Additionally, get a feel for how your vertical has evolved
by brushing up on its history — and stay abreast of industry trends by
subscribing to company blogs, industry-specific publications, or any other
resources that can give you perspective on where the space stands and where it
might be headed.
Doing the work to thoroughly understand your vertical will
help you both connect with the right people and know what to say to resonate
with them once you’ve got them on the phone.
11. Ask for referrals.
According to HubSpot’s recent survey of over 1,000 sales professionals, 66%
of salespeople say referrals from existing customers offer the best leads — and
high-quality leads often become productive prospects.
By asking for referrals, you can generate a wider base of
warmer, more easily convertible contacts, giving yourself a crucial leg up when
prospecting. When an existing customer connects you with a referral, they’re
essentially saying, “I think this person could stand to gain from your
solution.”
In turn, you can go into engagements with these leads,
knowing they’re more likely than most cold contacts to consider your offering.
You can also reference the customer who put you in touch with that lead when
conducting your outreach — a solid conversation starter that helps you develop
instant rapport.
So, how do you ask for referrals? Well, obvious as this
might sound, you just ask for them. After you convert a prospect into a
customer, follow up with them and ask if they know anyone else who might
benefit from your solution.
If they don’t know anyone straight off the bat, or if they
are reluctant to hand out names right away, wait until they’ve enjoyed your
product or service for a while. Then, when you know they’re happy with your
offering, check in again.
Now that they’ve been a customer for some time, they might
be more likely to put you in touch with some contacts who will be willing to
hear you out. To sweeten the deal even more, you can also offer them some sort
of incentive, like a discount or other promotions, in exchange for a referral.
With all of the steps and strategies involved in the
prospecting process, you might find yourself spending a lot of time on menial
tasks. Luckily, there are a number of sales prospecting tools you can use to
boost productivity and automate tasks.
Sales Prospecting Tools
You can select specific tools from this list to use
independently, or you can use multiple in tandem. To determine your needs and
gaps, consider which tools you currently use for prospecting. Then, experiment
with the options below to discover which ones work best for your business.
1. HubSpot CRM
Pricing: Free plans are available
Best for: Accruing and applying data for detailed company
insights
The HubSpot CRM has a robust suite of features that can
cover a range of your business’s needs — but when it comes to prospecting,
HubSpot sets itself apart with its support of detailed company insights.
Your prospecting efforts won’t take you too far if they’re
poorly informed, but sorting and applying relevant prospect information can be
as frustrating as it is essential.
The HubSpot CRM automatically populates new contact,
company, and deal records with details from its database of over 20 million
businesses. All you need is a prospect’s corporate email address.
So, if you’re in the market for a solution that can
streamline, simplify, and enhance your prospecting efforts by giving you a
fleshed-out picture of who you’re selling to, the HubSpot CRM might be the way
to go.
Key Features and Benefits
- Automatically
populates business insights based on a database of over 20 million
businesses
- Offers
a centralized location for easily sorting and tracking prospect details,
including intel from sales calls, emails, notes, deal activity, lifecycle
changes, and social media
- Includes
an accessible dashboard that lets you choose which information to display
on your contact, company, and deal records (without any help from IT)
2. Hunter
Pricing: Free plans are available
Best for: Aggregating email data for prospecting
Hunter offers a unique resource to set email prospecting
efforts in motion. Its solution allows users to quickly and easily translate
web data into a list of email contacts, giving salespeople easy access to a
solid base of targeted prospects.
Hunter boasts an impressive roster of customers — including
Google, IBM, and Microsoft — and for good reason: It’s a solution that combines
accessibility with powerful functionality. Virtually any salesperson can easily
leverage it to verifiably identify and connect with almost any prospect.
Key Features and Benefits
- Enables
you to search for prospects and find their email addresses by role
- Helps
you identify emails via common email formats used in the organization from
dozens of possible combinations
- Can
produce email addresses either in bulk or individually
3. Kixie
Pricing: Plans start at $35 per month
Best for: Reliable, easy-to-integrate calling and texting
automation
Kixie is one of the preeminent prospect outreach resources
on the market. It’s a customizable business calling and texting platform that
allows you to thoughtfully and effectively time and target your sales calls,
letting you connect with the right prospects at the right time.
The software folds easily and seamlessly into your tech
stack, and it can integrate with several high-profile platforms, including
HubSpot, Slack, and Pipedrive.
It’s also one of the most accessible options in its space.
In fact, I’ve found that virtually any user can quickly pick up and leverage
the program without extensive training. So, if you’re looking for a
streamlined, low-maintenance solution that lets you connect with your prospects
exactly when they’re most likely to be receptive to your outreach, look into
Kixie.
Key Features and Benefits
- Supports
an extensive suite of integrations
- Enables
you to contact thousands of prospects in a single day
- Easy
implementation with minimal training required
4. HubSpot Sales Lead Management & Prospecting Software
Pricing: Free plans are available
Best for: Establishing a baseline for a sound prospecting
infrastructure
HubSpot’s Sales Lead Management and Prospecting Software is
a collection of resources that helps you refine and more effectively conduct
your engagements with leads and prospects — and it covers a lot of bases.
This solution includes a conversation intelligence system
that can give you perspective on how to best tailor your messaging, as well as
automated email sequencing, customizable email templates, predictive lead
scoring, and several other first-rate resources for better understanding and
catering to your prospects.
HubSpot’s Sales Lead Management and Prospecting Software is
essentially a one-stop shop that offers a foundation for effective prospecting.
If you’re looking for a suite of free resources that provide
virtually everything you need to set your sales org up with a solid prospecting
infrastructure, I definitely recommend checking out these resources.
Key Features and Benefits
- A
range of resources, including conversation intelligence, email templates,
email sequences, predictive lead scoring, and reporting
- Ability
to track and filter leads to identify viable prospects
- Seamlessly
blends with your tech stack
5. SalesHandy
Pricing: Plans start at $7 per month per slot
Best for: Sound, approachable cold email outreach
SalesHandy is an outreach resource that allows you to
reliably send thoughtful, effective, high-converting cold emails. The solution
offers features like automated, multi-stage sequences for consistent follow-up
— ensuring interested prospects don’t fall through the cracks.
The software lets you standardize your outreach strategy
without sacrificing personalization, helping you tailor your subject lines and
email copy to suit individual prospects (without too much legwork).
It also ensures that the content of your emails isn’t too
robotic, letting you circumvent spam filters and deliver emails your prospects
will actually read.
Ultimately, SalesHandy is a cold email solution with a
robust suite of features that can help you reach out to prospects more
effectively. If you’re looking to integrate a platform that can enhance how you
connect with prospects into your tech stack, consider looking into SalesHandy.
Key Features and Benefits
- Automated
follow-up for scheduling multi-stage email sequences
- Merge
tags that allow for personalization
- Easy
integration with your current email provider
6. Crunchbase
Pricing: Plans start at $29 per user per month
Best for: Screening and discovering businesses that fit
your ideal customer profile
Crunchbase is essentially a business intelligence gathering
platform that lets you pull live company data to inform more targeted,
effective prospecting. It lets you search for and pull information from a
massive database of organizations, providing insight into individual companies’
characteristics and operations.
The platform gives users a picture of key elements of how a
business functions and performs, including investment information, founding
members, leadership profiles, mergers, acquisitions, news, and industry trends.
In this way, Crunchbase effectively centralizes and
streamlines your prospect research efforts, providing you with valuable intel
that can help you structure more thoughtful pitches and execute better-targeted
outreach.
So if you’re looking for a solution that can both simplify
and enhance how you understand your prospects, Crunchbase is definitely a
strong option to consider.
Key Features and Benefits
- An
extensive pool of live data on thousands of potential prospects
- A
filtering function that lets you pare down your searches based on ideal
characteristics
- Live
tracking to keep tabs on key company events and developments
7. Wiza
Pricing: Free plan is available with paid plans starting
at $25 per month
Best for: Finding real-time verified email addresses
Wiza is a popular sales prospecting platform for sales,
marketing, and recruiters. It is one of the only prospecting platforms that
provides real-time email verification within the app, to ensure high levels of
email accuracy and deliverability in your prospecting outreach. With Wiza, you
can build and save email lists, then export them as CSV or sync them to CRMs
including HubSpot.
In addition to their prospecting platform, Wiza offers a
free Chrome extension that allows you to view email and contact information
while browsing LinkedIn profiles. This extension can also be used to export
large lists with email addresses and phone numbers from filtered and saved
searches in LinkedIn Sales Navigator and LinkedIn Recruiter.
Key Features and Benefits
- Search
and discover real-time verified email addresses and contact info
- Bulk
export or integrate directly with popular tools like HubSpot, Outreach,
and more
- Free
Chrome extension that provides emails while using LinkedIn, LinkedIn Sales
Navigator, and LinkedIn Recruiter
8. Gong
Pricing: Contact for pricing
Best for: Improving outreach efforts via coaching reps
Gong might be the most prominent conversation intelligence
platform on the market. It’s a powerful solution that boasts an impressive list
of customers, including LinkedIn, Zillow, and Okta — and for good reason. The
platform is dynamic, intuitive, and can enhance virtually every aspect of your
sales process.
This solution offers a range of sales-call-related features,
but its support for more targeted call coaching is especially powerful for
improving sales organizations’ prospecting efforts.
Gong gives sales managers access to recordings, transcripts,
and other data to help them zero in on where reps are struggling when
conducting outreach. All of that information can also expose other flaws and
inefficiencies in elements of a sales org's prospecting efforts, such as its
call cadence or sales messaging.
All told, Gong is one of the most effective, accessible
resources a sales org can leverage to ensure its phone outreach is first-rate
and help reps prospect more thoughtfully.
Key Features and Benefits
- Guided
workflows to help you establish repeatable processes for better-targeted
call coaching
- Visible
transcripts for focused call analysis
- An
impressive suite of integrations — including HubSpot, Salesforce, and
Slack
9. Lusha
Pricing: Free plans available
Best for: Easily sourcing and accessing prospects'
contact information
Lusha is a first-rate data enrichment resource for finding
prospects’ contact information, including both email addresses and phone
numbers. This solution allows you to easily and reliably connect with
decision-makers and other key contacts at a range of businesses.
The program’s “contact search” feature provides as many as
1,000 contacts — supported by enriched data — in a single search. It also lets
you pull up millions of potential prospects’ direct dials.
From there, the software lets you convert those searches
into focused, clean, exportable contact lists. Plus, all of these features come
in a straightforward yet powerful interface that’s easy for anyone to use.
Key Features and Benefits
- Robust
“contact search” function
- Similarly
thorough “company search” function
- Extensive
suite of integrations, including HubSpot, Salesforce, and Gmail
10. Datanyze
Pricing: Free plans are available
Best for: Conversationally connecting with prospects
Datanyze is an intuitive Google Chrome extension that allows
salespeople to easily access B2B contact information and other valuable
prospect data, including email addresses, direct dial numbers, and company
details.
In addition, Datanyze really sets itself apart with its
personalization. The program leverages automated machine learning to support
one of the most detailed B2B databases on the internet — and that degree of
detail doesn’t go to waste.
Datanyze then uses that insight to structure relevant
icebreakers for individual prospects: unique conversation starters informed by
data from sources like prospects’ social media feeds and local news
publications.
Key Features and Benefits
- A
robust, detailed B2B contact library
- Easily
integratable (so long as you have Google Chrome)
- Generates
specific, effective icebreakers for prospect outreach
11. Ring.io
Pricing: Ring.io costs $89 per user per month for HubSpot
integration
Best for: Improving sales call productivity
Ring.io is a sales dialing solution that streamlines your
team’s sales call process and improves your org’s sales call volume (without
sacrificing productivity). It allows your reps to dial directly out of your
CRM, easily and reliably connecting them with the right prospects.
The program also includes features like automated local
caller ID and automatic pre-recorded voicemails — making your prospect outreach
more efficient, personalized, and approachable.
Leveraging Ring.io also lets you shape and refine an
effective call cadence, and the software accommodates even the longest of leads
lists. Taken together, Ring.io’s many features can help you achieve
wider-reaching, more productive sales calls.
Key Features and Benefits
- Direct
dialing out of your CRM
- Automated
local caller ID to improve connect rates
- Automated
pre-recorded voicemails for prospects you miss
Featured Resource: Prospecting and Objection Handling
Now, let’s take a step back and look at the sales
prospecting process as a whole.
Sales Prospecting Process
Alright — so, you've decided who you want to pursue. Now,
it’s time to get even more granular and jumpstart the nurturing process,
ideally resulting in a closed-won deal. Regardless of what your sales pipeline looks like, you’ll typically go through
the following phases.
1. Research
Effective prospecting begins by further researching the
prospects you’ve determined are generally a good fit. The goal during this
phase is to determine the quality of the prospect: that is, how likely they are
to make a purchase, based on factors like their budget and challenges.
And how do you figure that out? You evaluate the prospect
using preset qualifying dimensions — a set of criteria to evaluate the
probability that a lead or prospect will become a customer — and keep track of
your findings through a CRM.
2. Outreach
Once you’ve qualified the prospect, you’ll need to reach out
to someone at the business using a sales prospecting email.
In many cases, you’ll have to deal with a gatekeeper.
Whether they’re a personal assistant, a receptionist, or some other company
representative, this is the person who essentially screens you before you can
connect with someone who has decision-making authority.
Then, once you work your way past the gatekeeper (or
multiple gatekeepers), you’ll ideally be put in touch with a decision-maker:
Typically someone in the C-Suite or at the director level. This is the person
who has the seniority and authority to purchase products or services like
yours.
3. Discovery Call
After connecting with a gatekeeper, you’re going to want to
schedule a discovery call. A discovery call is a preliminary conversation with
a prospect in which you ask thoughtful, relevant questions to uncover their
goals, interests, and pain points.
This call is a unique opportunity for you to simultaneously
understand and impress your prospect. Asking the right questions can help you
tease out the information needed to understand whether your offering suits
their business — and to understand what an effective value proposition would be
for them.
But an effective discovery call is more than a conversation
for gathering intel. It’s also a chance for you to demonstrate your relevant
knowledge and start building rapport with the prospect.
By asking thoughtful, articulate questions that speak to how
well you understand elements like their industry or scale, you can establish
yourself as a trustworthy authority in their space right off the bat. And by
having a conversational, disarming conversation (without sacrificing
professionalism, of course), you can plant the seeds of a productive working
relationship.
4. Educate and Evaluate
After your discovery call, you can use the insight you
gathered to evaluate and qualify the prospect’s needs. This stage is where you
determine whether a prospect legitimately needs your solution, how viable a
potential deal is, and how to frame your value proposition — making it one of
the most (if not the most) crucial steps in the sales prospecting process.
Here, I’d suggest considering two main factors: pain points
and potential objections.
Pain Points
A company’s pain points are the issues, concerns, or gaps in
its operations that your product or service could remedy. With the information
from your discovery call, you should be able to piece together what those
aspects look like for your prospect.
For instance, let’s say you work for an ed-tech company that
offers curriculum scheduling software, and you’ve just had a discovery call
with a midsize community college.
During your call, you learned that it takes students at the
school an average of three years to earn an associate’s degree, leading to
lower enrollment than at competing schools, where students earn their degrees
in just two years.
You also found that classroom scheduling conflicts —
stemming from the institution’s existing curriculum scheduling system — are
causing required courses for popular majors to fall by the wayside every
semester.
Piecing those two bits of information together, you could
both identify course scheduling as a major pain point and point to how your
software could fix the problem, giving you the basis for an effective, concrete
value proposition.
Objections
You also need to be mindful of potential objections your
prospect might raise, such as budget or time constraints. When preparing for
this part of the process, make sure you thoroughly understand both the specific
pain points you identified and the state of the business in general.
Have a pulse on the company’s current buying power as well
as whether it really needs a solution like yours, exactly how urgent that need
might be, and the soundness of the rapport you’ve established with your
prospect up to this point. With all of that in mind, try to think about
potential areas of pushback that might emerge.
It’s also vital to know your prospect’s business inside and
out, so that when they raise objections, you can be specific in how you
respond. That means explaining how your solution will address their unique
issues, rather than just touting your product or service’s features in general.
5. Close
At this point, you should have all the information you need.
You know the prospect’s challenges, pain points, and possible objections. Now,
it’s time to try to turn them into a customer. This will result in one of two
outcomes:
- Closed-won:
When the buyer purchases a product or service from the sales rep.
- Closed-lost:
When the buyer fails to purchase a product or service from the sales rep.
Tracking these two metrics enables you to calculate
your closing ratio, or the ratio of prospects that you close and
win.
The process described above offers a general approach to
prospecting. But as you move through it, there’s another key choice you’ll have
to make: Will you engage with prospects through outbound or inbound prospecting
(or a bit of both)?
Below, I’ll share each of these options, and offer tips and
tricks to help you choose the best approach for your business.
Outbound vs. Inbound Prospecting
The field of sales is constantly evolving. As such, how
prospecting is conducted is naturally shifting with it. Sales reps no longer
have to choose between inbound or outbound prospecting — now, they have the
flexibility to incorporate elements of both into their efforts.
Outbound prospecting is when you reach out to
leads who haven’t yet expressed an interest in your product or business. You
typically identify prospects through independent research, whether by finding them on LinkedIn, Googling them, or using another
platform.
Inbound prospecting is when you reach out to a
lead who has already shown an active interest in your business or product.
Perhaps they’ve visited your website, subscribed to your blog, or maybe even
submitted a form asking to speak to a sales rep. You then engage with them to
understand whether they’d be a good fit for your product.
Here are the key differences between the two methodologies:
|
Outbound
prospecting |
Inbound
prospecting |
Outreach |
Cold
calling or emailing — unsolicited calls to sell your product or service |
Warm
emails to explore a relationship with a lead who has already expressed
familiarity with your product or service |
Social
“spamming” |
Unsolicited
social media messages to sell your product or service |
Use
social media to explore a relationship with a lead who has already expressed
familiarity with your product or service; you can provide value to prospects
on social media by answering their questions and introducing them to useful
content |
Process |
Research
takes longer without any prior history with a contact, meaning you have less
context when you’re ready to reach out to establish a connection |
Research
process is shorter as you already have their contact information and
interaction history, providing you with context about the prospect’s
interests or prior behavior and allowing you to develop more personalized
outreach |
Example |
“Hi
John, I wanted to reach out to you because I’ve worked with companies similar
to yours in the past.” |
“Hi
John, I’m reaching out because I noticed you were looking at our e-book on
improving sales productivity.” |
My recommendation? Lean mostly on the inbound methodology
when you prospect — but still include a responsible approach to outbound
tactics like cold calling and cold emailing. Especially for businesses that
don’t have enough qualified inbound leads, outbound can be an important
component of the process.
But regardless of whether you’re focused on outbound or
inbound, it’s critical to make sure you’re helping the buyer (rather than
selling to them), leveraging their context and understanding who they are and
what they need.
Of course, that’s easier said than done. How do you find
prospective buyers and learn the context surrounding their business needs? Even
more importantly, how do you determine whether or not you should begin the
process of selling to them?
There’s no one-and-done answer, but asking the sales
prospecting questions below can help you qualify prospects and focus on your
highest-potential leads:
Sales Prospecting Questions
Knowing who to pursue saves us a significant amount of time.
Not every lead is fit to be a prospect, and not every prospect will become a
paying customer. Luckily, there are a few questions you can ask to help you
determine whether a prospect is worth pursuing.
This isn’t just relevant for inbound leads. Even if you use
outbound prospecting methods, asking these questions should help you see a much
better response rate, because you took the time to vet their business for
suitability.
Below, I’ve put together some of my favorite qualifying questions, as well as related takeaways, to help
you evaluate whether or not a prospect has a high probability of becoming a
customer.
Is the prospect’s business an organizational fit?
This type of qualification is based solely on demographics.
Does the prospect fall within your territory? Do you sell in their industry? Do
they fit your buyer persona?
Say your target market consists of small- to medium-sized
businesses with anywhere from 100 to 1,000 employees. You should eliminate any
potential customers outside of these criteria.
Diving deeper, your product or service will naturally
provide higher value to a particular profile within that target market, such as
larger teams with medium-sized businesses. Those customers are also more likely
to upgrade to a higher tier of your product, providing more lifetime value as a
customer.
Takeaway: Prioritize customers based on the size of the
opportunity or their potential lifetime value.
Have you identified key stakeholders?
There are two types of people involved in the other end of
your sales process: decision-makers and influencers.
Influencers may not have the power to buy, but they’re often
the ones who will be using the product, and thus, they can become your biggest
internal advocates. If you get them to rally around your offering, they can
make a compelling case to decision-makers before you even speak with them.
Decision-makers are, of course, the ones that either approve
or reject the buy. You can ask the following questions to determine the
decision-making process: Will anyone else be involved in this decision? Does
this purchase come out of your immediate budget?
Takeaway: Keep a working list of influencers and
buyers, perhaps mapped out by the organizational structure of the organization.
You’ll use this list later in the outreach phase.
Are the prospect’s constraints a deal-breaker?
Time constraints and budget limitations are often the
biggest objections you’ll receive from prospects.
Before wasting time on an exploratory call to hear these
objections, do some homework to see if you can filter out potential buyers who
clearly don’t have the money or bandwidth to consider your offering.
For example, if you see that a prospect has just launched a
new marketing campaign, they might not have the time to cycle through an
extensive sales process.
Takeaway: Take note of prospects who don’t
currently have the bandwidth to talk to you but might later be a good fit, and
revisit them at a later date.
Are you familiar with the prospect’s market?
You’re likely to be more familiar with certain types of
companies, markets, or industries than others. Your pitch and sales techniques are also likely to be more
refined with markets you feel comfortable talking about, so you should
prioritize these prospects first.
Takeaway: Group similar prospects by
characteristics such as their service offering, their market, or their
industry, and then prioritize these groups based on your familiarity with them.
Would your company add substantial value?
Prospects to whom you can provide more value are more likely
to buy your offering. For example, if you’re selling basic digital marketing
services and you see that your prospect already has a robust web presence, the
probability you can add tremendous additional value is low.
Takeaway: Classify prospects by the level of value you
think you can provide, and prioritize those for whom you would offer the
highest value-add.
Do they have an awareness of your offering?
Your prospects will likely have varying levels of knowledge
about your product or services. The more awareness they have, the more likely
they are to see the value in your offering and become customers.
If a prospect has visited your website, subscribed to your
blog, or posted content about something related to your offering, they probably
know a lot about your company or service — and so they’ll probably be more
likely to buy.
Takeaway: Group prospects by their level of awareness,
and prioritize those who have demonstrated more awareness of your company.
Prospecting Email Examples
Once you've identified your prospects, it’s time to start
connecting with them. Ready to reach out to some prospects? Use the following
email templates to get started:
1. Reaching Out After a Referral
Subject: [Name of referrer] recommended we connect
Hey [prospect name],
It’s great to meet you. Our mutual connection, [name of
referrer], recommended I get in contact with you because [X].
I would love to hear more about what you do in your role —
according to [name of referrer], it seems like you may be facing [X]
challenges.
[Product name] can help you achieve [X] and increase
efficiency by [X]%.
Is that a priority for your team right now?
Best,
[Your name]
2. Providing Links After They Downloaded a Resource
Subject: More [specialty] resources for [business name]
Hi [prospect name],
It’s great to meet you. How are you enjoying [name of
resource] so far?
I can see that you’re interested in [X] and so I compiled
three more resources that will help your team do [X] better.
- [Link
1]
- [Link
2]
- [Link
3]
In the meantime, I’d love to hop on a phone call and learn
about how your quarter is going so far. Are you available on Thursday morning
for a 10-minute call?
Best,
[Your name]
3. Congratulating Them for an Award or Publication
Subject: Congrats on [award]
Hi [prospect name],
Congratulations on receiving [award]! That’s a rare
accomplishment — kudos to you and the team.
To introduce myself, I’m a [title] at [company]. I work with
small businesses in your industry to achieve [X] results. Just last week,
[competitor] told me they finally reached their goal of [X], boosting their ROI
to [X]%.
I’d love to chat and see whether we can get similar, if not
better, results for you. Would you be available for a ten-minute call on
Friday?
Best,
[Your name]
Prospect Marketing
Prospect marketing is a brand of content marketing a
business leverages deeper in its sales process than most other types of
marketing. It involves providing a prospect with media like sales collateral,
technical documents, and other resources to help influence their
decision-making as they move closer to closing.
So, you’ve successfully prospected a handful of potential
clients. Now what? It’s time to nurture those prospects with prospect
marketing.
Prospect marketing is essentially bringing a prospect closer
to, well, closing. Just because you’ve connected with a prospect doesn’t mean
you should stop all your marketing efforts. Instead, your marketing should
become more personalized and targeted.
If you haven’t already developed sales collateral, work with
your marketing and customer service teams to prepare these materials for
potential buyers in each stage of their journey. Email templates, call scripts,
and pre-call checklists are just a few of the tools I’d suggest to help you
streamline the prospect marketing process.
Another prospect marketing strategy is creating workflows in
tools like HubSpot. Workflows automate your marketing processes — including how
you market to your prospects.
Use workflows to set up pre-written emails, SMS messages, or
in-app notifications that are sent to your prospects based on certain triggers,
such as a video view, a content offer download, or inactivity for a certain
number of days.
In short, anything that keeps your prospects engaged with
and educated about your brand is considered prospect marketing. Even a daily or
weekly check-in with prospects counts. Again — just because you’ve connected
with a prospect doesn't mean the marketing should stop.
Begin Sales Prospecting
Prospecting doesn’t have to be a difficult or tedious
process. In fact, it can be a positive experience for both sales reps and
prospects. So don’t be afraid to incorporate a few of the strategies I’ve
reviewed above into your workflow, and to experiment with different techniques
and tools to see what works best for your team. You’ll be sure to start
converting more good-fit prospects into paying customers in no time at all!