Sales Prospecting Tips From the Experts

One of the things we do to add value to this blog is to let sales experts do the talking on key issues that are important for people in Sales. Prospecting and cold calling rank very high on the list, so we have collected some highly valuable tips and advice for you on these topics from successful experts who have actually written the book on it.

1. Jeb Blount – “Fanatical Prospecting: The Ultimate Guide to Opening Sales Conversations and Filling the Pipeline by Leveraging Social Selling, Telephone, Email, Text, and Cold Calling.”

The book will show you how to avoid an empty pipeline and feed your sales organization with a sufficient quantity of qualified leads by making use of a balanced prospecting methodology.

What is balanced prospecting? Find out in this exclusive sales prospecting interview that Jeb Blount gave to Lucep.

2. Claude Whitacre – “Sales Prospecting: The Ultimate Guide To Referral Selling, Social Contact Marketing, Telephone Prospecting, And Cold Calling To Find Highly Likely Prospects You Can Close In One Call.”

This book will show you how to triple the number of referrals you get, and ensure that 80% of these referrals will agree to meet with you and be happy to see you. Claude started his long and illustrious career in sales by selling vacuum cleaners door-to-door. He went three months without a sale at first, but kept at it, and made it a point to make notes after each presentation. He studied what worked and what didn’t, and strove to improve. Claude Whitacre soon shattered the sales records in this field, and even ended up selling a vacuum cleaner to every single home on the same city street.

I bring up this old history here just to highlight the fact that this is someone who been there and done it, and is now showing you how to do sales prospecting. One more thing – Claude shared a very useful tip on sales prospecting in this exclusive interview with Lucep on how to get an appointment for a sales call without actually asking for one.

3. Mark Hunter – "High-Profit Prospecting: Powerful Strategies to Find the Best Leads and Drive Breakthrough Sales Results".

In the age of the Internet, is cold calling dead? Not so fast, says sales expert Mark Hunter. This book will help you trade cold calling for “informed calling” and help you tailor your timing and message, write compelling emails, make best use of referrals and voicemail, and avoid the common prospecting pitfalls that new sales reps and SDRs usually wade into.

The Sales Hunter also shared with us in this interview a solid gold technique on how to sell without giving any discounts. The key is to focus on the right prospects. When you get this right, you’ll get the pricing right too.

4. Aaron Ross – “Predictable Revenue: Turn Your Business Into a Sales Machine with the $100 Million Best Practices of Salesforce.com.”

As Director of Corporate Sales, Salesforce.com, Aaron Ross created a “Cold Calling 2.0″ framework to enable his new sales team and process to grow Salesforce.com’s recurring revenues by $100 million. Predictable Revenue gives you a peek into the nuts and bolts of Salesforce’s massively successful outbound sales process, and explains how to replicate it for your organization.

Here’s a guide on how to implement the Cold Calling 2.0 prospecting process and generate predictable revenue for your organization, shared with us by Aaron himself.

5. Art Sobczak – “Smart Calling: Eliminate the Fear, Failure, and Rejection from Cold Calling”

While other books on cold calling dispense long-perpetuated myths such “prospecting is a numbers game,” and salespeople need to “love rejection,” this book will empower readers to take action, call prospects, and get a yes every time.

How do you get a “yes” every time? Find out in this exclusive cold calling interview that Art Sobczak gave to Lucep.