Developing a Strategic Prospecting Plan

Background Jennifer Hamman graduated from the state university and was hired as a sales representative for the Logistics Company. The Logistics Company is a transportation broker that links companies needing products shipped with trucking firms to carry the shipments. After an initial training program, Jennifer was given a couple of existing company customers and a small list of leads to get her started. She began by serving the shipment needs of the existing customers. This gave her some confidence, but she realized that for her to be successful, she must begin prospecting and try to identify the best sales opportunities. The Logistics Company provides an ongoing list of leads that can be accessed by all salespeople. Once a salesperson contacts one of these leads, no other salesperson can contact them. Jennifer started her prospecting by contacting these leads.

Current Situation

Jennifer has been calling a number of leads each day, but has not been very successful in generating much business. She feels like she is wasting much of her time on leads that are not good sales opportunities. The leads provided by her company are not qualified in any way and the training program she attended focused on cold calling as the basic prospecting method. Jennifer took a professional selling class in college and remembered that the chapter on prospecting emphasized the need to follow the strategic prospecting process to identify the best sales opportunities. She found her professional selling textbook, went to the chapter on prospecting, and decided to create a strategic prospecting plan.

Questions

What methods should Jennifer use to generate sales leads beyond those provided by her company?

How should Jennifer qualify the leads provided by her company and those she generates herself?

What is the profile of an ideal prospect? How should Jennifer prioritize her qualified prospects?

What information should Jennifer collect to prepare for sales dialogue with a prospect?

How can Jennifer use social selling to improve her strategic prospecting process?

Role Play Situation: Read case and prepare a strategic prospecting plan. Characters: Jennifer and her sales manager.

Scene: Jennifer has implemented her strategic prospecting plan and been very successful. She has been the top seller in her office for the past two months. Her sales manager is impressed and he asks her what she is doing to be so successful. She indicates that her success is due to spending most of her time with the best sales opportunities. He wants to talk to her about her strategic prospecting plan and sets up a meeting.

Location: Sales managers office.

Action: Role play the meeting between Jennifer and her sales manager. The sales manager should ask many questions and Jennifer will respond to these questions. The use of social selling has been valuable to Jennifer and no other salespeople at the Logistics Company are using social selling, so make sure the role of social selling is included in the role play.