B2B Prospecting Strategies Don't Work Until You've Figured This Out

Is B2B prospecting in a new world a crisis or opportunity?

The biggest challenge that today's salespeople need to learn to overcome is about building relationships online. Many people try using cold calls, social selling or emailing, only to hear back from barely anyone.

In this article, you’ll discover what B2B prospecting should begin with so you can attract high-quality prospects who are most likely to become buyers.

Many things have changed in the post pandemic world.

This includes the way in which prospecting is done. One clear thing is how interactions have moved a lot from face to face into the virtual setting.

In a survey done by the RAIN Group, the top challenges salespeople faced in a virtual selling environment were:

● 91% said they had struggles keeping customers engaged

● 89% said they had struggles changing the point of view on what's possible

● 88% said they had struggles with develop relationships with buyers virtually

This is also one of the common things I tend to hear people tell me during my training sessions. However, I've discovered the Top B2B salespeople behave in a different way that allows them to overcome these problems.

How Top B2B Salespeople Prospect Differently

To begin, I’ll like to share an important shift in the way we see ourselves in sales and prospecting. One of the key roles that every salesperson would need to play is the role of an entrepreneur.

We studied some of the most successful salespeople and we discovered they never see themselves as doing sales alone. Instead, they see themselves as the president of their own sales organizations.

If you want to be successful in sales, it's important that we see ourselves differently. Your belief system needs to change.

We don't see ourselves as sales reps or sales executives, but we see ourselves as business owners that have to manage our own customer database.

A salesperson needs to balance these three areas within the circles well.

You have to allocate the time you’re going to spend on doing the prospecting, strategic planning and all the other things which go into running a business.

Therefore, one of the key abilities every sales professional needs to have is the ability to manage their priorities.

We don't say that we’re managing our time because each one of us has 24 hours. However, we need to be able to manage our priorities, and this leads to the next part where we talk about market research and evaluating opportunities.

How much time am I going to spend on prospecting? Which customer should I spend more time with? This is closely related to how you evaluate every opportunity you’re pursuing.

The Truth? Not All B2B Prospecting Is Equal

Next, we talk about opportunity evaluation.

Why do we evaluate opportunities? The reason we are evaluating an opportunity is to determine how much of our time we should be spending on a customer. Where should I be prioritizing most of our time on our efforts? How much effort do I put into pursuing this specific account?

One of the things we teach when we evaluate opportunities is called the three Rs. The diagram is shown below:

The 3R framework that determines where our personal resources should go.

Opportunity Factor 01: Resonance

First is assessing resonance, which I think is highly important. I have to be real. Based on my current situation and offering, can I really solve the prospect’s problems and meet their needs?

When I used to work for a small company, we were trying to target a really big global company. Please don't get me wrong – I'm not saying if you are a small company, there's no way you can get a big project.

I’m saying we need to be cautious because our biggest asset is our time. If you're going to be spending a lot of time on an account but the chances of getting the deal is low, you need to ask yourself:

Is this really worth the time? What are my chances of succeeding?

The most important thing when we talk about resonance is whether the customer has a need or want you can fulfil in your capacity.

Besides, are we better able to solve our customer’s problem when compared to our competitors? If we're not able to, maybe this is just not for us. The customer could be located very far off and the chances of landing the deal is just too low. This is the reality check we need to have.

Opportunity Factor 02: Risk

Next, we look at the risks as well. What are my risks involved if I spend so much time and effort in pursuing this account and I don’t close it? For B2B sales, this risk would also involve some initial investment in pursuing this account. Does this risk actually justify me pursuing this account? Even though it can give me a huge deal, what are my chances?

It might be very attractive, but what are the risks involved? Most of the time, salespeople just look at the rewards themselves when they evaluate opportunities, but they forget to look at reality. They forget to do a SWOT analysis.

Opportunity Factor 03: Reward

Of course, the reward is the third R in evaluating opportunities. When we look at rewards, we're also not just looking at the potential revenue gain. We're looking beyond at how attractive this account really is. For example, if an account can give you huge revenue but the time to get this money could be six months, is it really that profitable at all?

Also, we look into the profitability of the account. It’s not just the revenue and sales generated, but the profitability is important. All of these things affect how you look at whether or not this opportunity is good to pursue.

With these three things in mind, I will look at every opportunity. For example, we have opportunity A, B and C. I’ll look at the resonance, risks and rewards for opportunity A. Afterwards, I’ll do the same thing for opportunity B and C. You get the idea. We’ll list down all the opportunities, score them and come up with a priority list.

Given the measurement of these three key factors, I might find that opportunity C should be given the top priority because it has the lowest risk and highest reward.

Upon a reality check, there's a high chance we can get this deal because we can offer some things that the competitor isn’t able to. That's basically how we do an evaluation of opportunities.

As you’re going through your daily activities, you have to consider whether these activities are generating income for you.

It can be easy to get caught up in a lot of things, but they might be taking time away from the activities that really matter. For example, would you want to keep meeting the same prospect for tea when you know he or she is unlikely to buy?

Sometimes, it's hard to gauge if the activity you’re doing is generating income for you. The sales professional needs to be able to weigh this by themselves: at the end of the day is this really worth my time and effort to pursue this particular customer?

One of my past clients engaged me to be his sales coach. He shared that when he started in his new sales role, it was pretty challenging for him because he felt his closing ratio was very low in his previous sales role.

(To discover a framework for delivering impactful sales presentations, check out this article here.)

When he went into this new role, he was questioning himself when he came to me. He said, “Jacky, to be honest, I don't even know whether I'm suited for doing sales or not.” But after our second coaching session, I began to show him that he was spending a lot of time pursuing the wrong accounts. These accounts were giving him minimal returns.

Right after I shared with him the way to evaluate his opportunities, which include his potential returns, time and effort required, and the risk involved in pursuing the account, he was able to maximize his productivity and increase his sales.

Where To Find Your Most Qualified B2B Leads

This is where we talk about market research, which is interconnected with prospecting and evaluating opportunities. Looking at all three areas will allow me to know how much time am I going to spend with each prospect.

Before we can even do all the evaluation of opportunities, we need to be able to do some market research. While others will talk about the ideal customer profile, there is a term that I use for myself in sales. I call this group of people your affinity audience.

The word affinity itself means having a natural liking or attraction to a person. If we're able to identify our affinity audience, it allows us to take the path of least resistance to achieve success in sales because we find the people who naturally work well with you.

Everyone has an inclination to attract a certain group of people.

However, sometimes they’re not aware of who these people are because they don't take time to ponder over it. If you try to target everyone, you end up not winning anyone. Nobody likes to work with a jack of all trades. We want to have a really clear idea of who these people are.

How The Affinity Audience Concept Works

If you have an affinity audience with a certain industry, some salespeople are able to succeed just by gripping one particular group of customers. These salespeople realised this group of customers offers the path of least resistance when closing them. Somehow, they’ve found favour with this group of people. When you’re always going after accounts you don’t have an affinity with, you're likely going to struggle.

As you gain experience, you begin to discover there are certain kinds of customer profiles that tend to gravitate towards you. In my case, I tend to work very well with salespeople who are typically strategic thinkers.

Knowing your affinity audience is also linked to knowing what are your own strengths. Personally, I realised people who enjoy working with me are people who find I can make things simple for them to understand. They describe me as someone who is able to give them the part of selling that allows them to understand how exactly they should do it. It’s not just about motivation.

From their responses, I realised that people who tend to gravitate towards me have a certain level of intellect. They are basically people who like to think more, and ask how they can specifically apply what they’ve learnt. This is also why I've also chosen to specialize in B2B sales.

(To discover more about what makes B2B sales different, you can check out this article.)

After identifying where you did well, you can start looking for common patterns. You can contact your top 10 happy customers and have a talk with them.

Through the conversation, you want to find out what it is they liked about your service. If you discover a common pattern, this will give you the indicator of what is causing people like this to be attracted to you.

Next you look at the background of these customers. What do they share in common? Do these people share the same psychographics or demographics? Do they think in a certain way or have certain personality traits?

You can look at who are the people you tend to connect best with in each group.

For example, some people tend to attract people who are more people oriented. Others tend to attract people who are more task oriented.

Having said that, the best sales people also need to take a very flexible approach. If I tend to sell best to people who are people oriented, I need to change my approach if I meet someone from a different category.

What B2B Prospecting Is Really About

At its heart, good B2B prospecting is about managing your priorities, evaluating your opportunities and finding your affinity audience.

If you're looking to help your sales team overcome their challenges in finding and qualifying prospects, then click the link here for a complimentary strategy session.