Outbound Prospecting: 6 Tips To Fill Your Funnels

Prospecting is the lifeblood of your business. The reason you have a job. The force that drives you to get out of bed in the morning. 

Prospecting is vital to your success. But, it’s something that can easily fall by the wayside when you are short on time.  

There’s already an insane amount of emails to return, calls to make and meetings to attend. How on Earth are you supposed to find the time to prospect?

Selling Revolution will show you how to up your game. Read on to learn about six important tips to fill your funnels.

What Is Outbound Processing?

Outbound prospecting is the act of contacting potential prospects to engage them about your products or services. For many people, outbound prospecting is synonymous with cold-calling. 

There are other strategies to use to engage with your prospects, including social media, email, and networking events.

What are the Benefits of Outbound Processing?

You may not know it, but you likely use outbound processing every day. Have you ever gone to a drive-through or ATM machine to pay a bill or withdraw money? 

These machines are an example of outbound processing. When you make a request, the machine processes it and then sends a confirmation back to you. 

You can do the same with sales and marketing. Outbound processing allows you to automate your sales and marketing processes so you can get more customers contacting you.

Outbound prospecting is used by sales professionals to convince potential clients to buy their company’s products and services. 

It is a multi-step process. It works by researching and targeting prospects and building relationships with those people. Finally, you can create a sales pitch around their needs and concerns. 

This can be done over email, phone, social media, etc. The best part of outbound prospecting is that it’s a numbers game. The more outbound prospecting you do, the better your results will be. 

So, it’s an ideal approach for businesses with limited time or money to spend on marketing. So whether you’re prospecting existing leads or developing new ones you can’t lose.

These Benefits Fall Into Three Categories:

Pipelines

Pipelines are stages that allow you to turn a potential lead into a paid customer. It is different from a sales funnel because the pipeline is the total of all of the sales funnels.

New Market Potential

The new market potential is now out in the open. The internet is bigger than you think, and so is the chance to expand your business with new market potential. 

Avenues such as business, media and social media sites allow you to expand your business. By reaching out to the right networks and influencers, you’ll soon realize new sales opportunities.

Outsourcing Possibilities

Outsourcing can give sales teams a bit of breathing space. It assigns low-priority work from your high-ranking sales reps and provides you with a bit of a marketing budget cushion. 

Inbound Prospecting vs. Outbound Prospecting

The terms “inbound prospecting” and “outbound prospecting” are sometimes mistakenly used interchangeably. This error is understandable since they both revolve around the process of prospecting for leads. 

However, the terms have their own specific meanings and entail different processes. 

Inbound marketing is considered the de facto standard for generating leads for your business. SEO, social media marketing and content marketing are all part of the inbound marketing strategy.

It focuses on creating “content” that people will find useful, funny,  etc. When content is inspiring or engaging, people will also want to share it. 

Outbound prospecting involves “cold-calling” to attract the attention of potential customers. It is normally done using highly-targeted scripts to engage prospects.

Both inbound and outbound prospecting are potentially highly-lucrative marketing strategies. 

Prospecting and Automation Tools

The best way to prospect is by following up on leads that come in. 

Prospecting is the lifeblood of any B2B sales organization. It’s how leads are created, nurtured and qualified. It’s the process of uncovering potential buyers and identifying their needs. 

Without prospecting, your sales team will quickly run out of leads. This will leave them unable to close deals or maintain a steady stream of business. 

However, not everyone is an email marketing pro. If writing emails is not your forte, here are a few tools that can help you get your prospecting done:

Customer Relationship Management (CRM)

Every company knows that a healthy pipeline of quality leads is the lifeblood of their business. Without leads, there is no sales process. 

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is a marketing strategy used to manage relationships with clients. CRM is a way of organizing, storing and using marketing data together. This strategy can be more easily used in future marketing campaigns. 

The CRM approach emphasizes data-driven decision-making. It helps guide marketers in their efforts to build relationships with existing clients. It also helps to establish relationships with new clients.

Marketing Automation Platform

The term “marketing automation” has been thrown around. It’s often used synonymously with “email automation”. There’s a lot of confusion around these two terms, so here’s a breakdown of each: 

Marketing Automation is a way to manage your marketing process. Automation includes lead generation, lead nurturing, lead scoring and lead routing. 

Email Automation, on the other hand, is a small part of your Marketing Automation strategy. It’s the process of sending emails based on a lead’s behavior.

LinkedIn Sales Navigator

When you’re a marketer, you need to put yourself out there by expanding your network. 

Expanding your network takes time. So, you need to find new and innovative ways to do it. An excellent way to expand your network and contacts is through LinkedIn. 

The social networking platform is great for connecting with people you already know. LinkedIn Sales Navigator will help you find new, qualified leads that you can connect with. 

This new resource will make prospecting easier, which is great for anyone who is serious about marketing. It’s a product by LinkedIn that is designed to aid salespeople in their day-to-day activities. 

Navigator is an outbound prospecting tool designed to find new business opportunities. This tool is powered by LinkedIn teleties data and is available on the cloud.

Sales Intelligence Tool

Sales Intelligence is a method of acquiring and analyzing information about prospects. Specifically, this strategy includes prospects to a company would like to sell to. 

Due to advances in technology, Sales Intelligence is becoming more accessible and affordable for small and mid-sized businesses. These tools can help organizations get more leads, close more deals and decrease the cost per lead.

The Sales Intelligence Tool is a simple way to track website visitors and prospects across your sales funnel. This helps you build a complete picture of your target customer. 

The tool is available with CRM. But, you can also download it as a free add-on for up to five users. 

Sales Communication Platform

Salesforce.com is one of the highest-profile sales automation solutions on the market today. It’s used by many of the Fortune 500 companies. 

Salesforce.com has added a new product called Sales 2.p. It is targeted at outbound sales professionals. It is a sales communication platform that brings together email, voice mail and social media. 

Salesforce improves the sales communication experience.

If you’re a salesperson, you probably know that it’s hard to get leads these days. That’s why you’re looking for the best sales communication platform around. 

You need help to automate your communication with prospects and free you up so you can focus on growing your business. 

Important Tips for a Successful Outbound Prospecting

Outbound prospecting, also known as cold-calling, is a strategy that every company employs at some point. 

The approach to it varies greatly from business to business. 

At one end of the spectrum, there’s the nuclear option, which entails salespeople contacting as many people as possible. At the other end, companies will use outbound prospecting to follow up on inbound marketing leads.

Introduce Properly

When cold-calling someone, it’s a good strategy to treat your prospect like an old friend. Stay chill, not too formal. 

Get straight to the point when calling. Let them know who you are and who you work for. 

Let your prospects know exactly what you want them to know. But, say it in a way that they feel they need something from you.

This doesn’t just apply to introductions, it can be used in many different scenarios.

Do Not Apologize for the Interruption

Outbound prospecting is the process of contacting and attempting to engage strangers with your offer. While many people dislike it, it is an essential part of achieving success in sales. 

When done well, it leads to new relationships and new sales. 

You should never apologize for cold-calling, someone. You obviously called the prospect to sell them something. This is your job. 

If you believe in yourself and your product, then feel no shame. If your pitch is spot on, you will succeed. 

When done poorly, it is an annoying experience for the prospect. 

State Your Purpose

If you are an outbound salesperson, you are likely making outbound prospecting calls most of the time. There is a good chance you are also frustrated with prospects who don’t want to listen to you. 

Every salesperson understands this issue. But, there are ways to make your prospecting calls more effective.

Always state the purpose of your call. Put it out there quickly before the prospect loses interest. By keeping your prospect’s attention, you’ll increase your chances of a sale. 

Look for Relevant and Recent News About a Prospect/Company on Their Activity Feed

There are a number of tools you can use to find relevant and recent news about a prospect or company. Start by checking their social media on their activity feed.

LinkedIn offers a number of ways to accomplish this goal. 

When searching for news on the right-hand side of your screen, you will find a number of options. You can search for recent news or news related to the prospect’s company. 

You should also be able to locate news about the prospect’s industry or their position.

Include Social Proof

Including social proof in your content can be a great way to help prospects feel more comfortable with your brand. 

But, if you do it wrong, it can come off as inauthentic. It’ll also make your content seem sales-y, and even annoy some readers. 

Do Research on Your Prospect’s Company Website

When you’re starting your sales prospecting, it’s always good to do a little research on your prospect. Spending some time up front learning about them rather than spending more time down the line trying to recover. 

You’ll end up with a much stronger objection-handling repertoire if you do research upfront.

Is an Outbound Prospecting Team Right for You?

No job is perfect. Cold-calling people day after day can be tough. But, outbound prospecting can make you a great living if you stick with it. 

If you agree with the statements below, then you’ll no doubt make a great salesperson:

Growing sales is a priority, but there’s a lack of the right opportunities in your pipeline.

Your sales require extensive research from your team. This is making it difficult to reach the right people and resources. Your team is being squeezed for time when trying to secure their own prospects.

You need to increase your business by learning about and experimenting in the latest technologies and markets.

Your sales strategy needs a major revamp. and you want to interact with more clients and prospects.

You want to test out new markets and ways to communicate with prospects.

Selling Revolution is here to improve your marketing skills. Our customized services will show you how to make the best of outbound prospecting.

Book an appointment with Selling Revolution today to get started.