When you are assembling your prospecting lists, use the following criteria:
- Location (city, state, country)
- Size (number of employees, presumed turnover, share capital, branches)
- Business segment (CNAE - National Economic Activity Classification)
- Department (marketing, legal, rh, financial, owners etc)
- Interlocutor (senior, full, junior)
Use one or more of these providers to generate your lists:
- Econodata
- Google Business (Maps)
- Linkedin Sales Navigator
- Resultys
- Serasa Online
- SPC
To test a market segment generate 100 records and make your approach by phone followed by email.
Between 0 and 30 days you should generate between 2 and 8 leads for every 100 companies approached. Between 30-60, the result should be between 5-15 leads and after 90 days, you should look for something around 20 leads generated per month, counting that you put in the machine 100 new prospects every month. This growth is due to the cumulative effect of contacts (including follow ups).
If your market is too narrow (high sales cycle) or too saturated, these results can fall by half.
Pois bem.
What to do when those numbers aren't coming.
First, analyse the prospecting execution. The same script used by two different executives generates different results. Monitor some calls and see if there are any mistakes in the passing of the offer or even anxiety, impatience on the part of the prospect.
Then review your offer: what is being passed on to the other side. Check that it's not something too generic and lacking specific benefits. Also, check that it's not something too complex and high input friction. Review the concepts of the Entry Product.
If these are not the issues, then you should consider going down a notch or two in the size of the companies approached. The larger the size, the longer the approach cycle (between introduction and scheduling the first meeting).
If you targeted companies above 1,000 employees and didn't get any leads drop down to companies with 300-500 employees. The only difference, between them is the time it will take you to present yourself in a meeting.
Another factor that interferes too much in the generation of results is anxiety on the part of the managers who command the commercial operation.
Because of the urgent need for new business, it is wrong to demand immediate results from SDRs and worse, it is wrong to apply continuous changes in the approach and conversion processes.
The onus comes, due to the lack of consistency, in the form of random results leaving no modelling of what is working for a given project, due to constant changeovers.
As seen, there are some factors (structural, marketing and procedural) that interfere too much in the results of prospecting.
Given the same ideal conditions for the prospecting areas, the one that can test the largest number of market segments with a very competitive entry product will succeed.
