The days of merely putting content on the Internet and suddenly getting hundreds or qualified leads from what you post is long gone. When everybody is doing something, you know it’s an idea that’s past its prime.
Sure, there will always be success stories about how one person turned a single blog post or on-line ad into hundreds of customers, but it’s a tough road to go down.
What I find more interesting is how more people in both B2B and B2C are turning back to using methods many people thought were old-school and dead. Just last week a prominent tech industry sales expert came out and said the telephone works.
Wow! What a shock! It’s as if people are finding the telephone for the first time.
For years I’ve been a strong proponent of the telephone when prospecting. I don’t say it’s the only way, but I do say it’s one of the tools you need to have in your toolbox. This applies for both B2B and B2C. Yes, there are regulations you need to adhere to, but that is not a reason to not use the telephone.
When I’m working with clients, whether it be consulting, training or speaking, I always tell them that when they are developing their prospecting plan, build it out first with the telephone. Put the phone first and then work around it other tools such as email, social media, and direct mail.
The question I get from people is, “How do I go about getting contact information for people I want to prospect?” Great question and my suggestion is to use a database to help you use your time more effectively. One database I like is www.Infofree.com for consumer information and www.SalesFlower.com for business information.
One reason I like these sites is they allow you to try before you buy. They have a quick search feature that allows you to download 5 leads of your choice based on the criteria you enter. Check it out for yourself! You’ll see the “Try it Now” button on the homepage.
If you’re one of the vast majority of salespeople in need of leads, it’s worth checking out. (In full disclosure, I do provide consulting support to InfoFree, but did not receive any compensation for this blog post. It was in my working with them when I learned how their databases are built and came to view them as the go-to source for leads.)
Copyright 2017, Mark Hunter “The Sales Hunter.” Sales Motivation Blog. Mark Hunter is the author of High-Profit Prospecting: Powerful Strategies to Find the Best Leads and Drive Breakthrough Sales Results.
Another that I see coming is door to door sales.
There is no easy path to success. I have seen a few “gurus” promoting courses for learning Ebay, Amazon and a couple of others. But I realise the money is in the sales of those courses and very little with either Amazon and Ebay.
One other is this previous proliferation of shopping cart websites in preference for setting up on Amazon. Again, in a flooded market, profits will be much less and I believe the money is actually in owning the platform where people sell their product, not so much in the products themselves.
Some very skilled phone sales people who live in India have begun to master speaking with the accents of the people they are calling on to quickly build rapport and remove bias.
Getting back to basics, I agree can make bigger profits.