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Smart B2B Prospecting in 2006
How to get your foot in the door!
Introduction
Business to Business sales "B2B" or Enterprise Sales is one of the most financially
rewarding professions. The financial rewards are significant and it is therefore one of
the most challenging professions. When you are selling high priced products and
services into corporate America, the sales proccess is complex, the sales cycles are
long and the competition is fierce. No matter how experienced you are in enterprise
sales you can always improve your performance. Hence there are a myriad of
excellent books and training programs that cater towards enterprise sales people.
Miller Heiman, Sandler Sales, Select Selling, Carnegie Training, Customer Centric
Selling, Huthwaite International and others come to mind. These are all excellent
sales methodologies and you can benefit by studying all of them.
However, most enterprise sales books and programs skip over what I believe is the
most difficult and crucial aspect of the sales process, which is how do you get your
foot in the door? You can read to your blue in the face about "managing your
pipeline", "closing the deal", "negotiating success", etc... Again this is all good stuff,
but how do you find that new customer, that new opportunity? What is the best way
to make initial contact with your ideal prospect? How do you expand your existing
network into new industries and vertical markets? This is the biggest challenge for
both the experienced and the new, so this is the challenge we will learn to overcome.
Your marketing department and/or inside sales team shares the responsibility of
prospecting with you, however the marketing people are not financially penalized if
you do not meet your quota, your are. Marketing departments are usually not
measured by revenue metrics, you are. Marketing departments and/or inside sales
teams are excellent resources that