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By Clive Price
The Myths:
*The more prospects I see the more deals I’ll close.
*I need to keep my sales pipeline full of prospects.
*Rejec?on is just part of the game.
*GeBng an appointment means the prospect is interested.
*Salespeople are born not made.
It’s about quality, not quan?ty. In this magazine’s media kit, we talk about the “cost per
thousand myth”. Media buyers and adver?sers will oLen judge a publica?on solely by the
number of it’s reader, before deciding whether to place their adver?sing in that journal. The
more readers a magazine has, the cheaper it costs ( per 1000 readers) to reach them.
So the calcula?on looks like this: say the adver?sement cost R100 to place and the magazine
reached 1000 readers, the cost to reach each reader is 10 cents. Looks simple, no?
There are a few cri?cal things that are oLen leL out of the equa?on.
The first is: how niched is that publica?on? Let me explain: an insurer wishes to reach new
customers. The insurer then places an advert in a na?onal Sunday paper (with say, a readership
of over a million people). The adver?sement costs a R100 000 plus, because as the Sunday
Paper adver?sing sales person points out, the million readers it reaches make the cost per
thousand price one of the cheapest in the country. And that’s fine if you are wishing to reach a
general retail consumer.
But what the are not taking cognizance of is that, of the million readers, only a ?ny frac?on is in
the market for insurance. By comparison an adver?sement in this (niched) publica?on, where
every reader is an intermediary ( or, at very least, employed by an insurance company), the
adver?sing message will reach far more qualified readers. A single broker could have anywhere
between 500 and 5000 clients. That means a single message in this publica?on has the poten?al
to influence 7.5 million qualified insurance clients. Yet RISKsa currently has only a shade over 15
000 readers. See why properly qualified leads are so important?
Highly successful salespeople target a select few prospects and work them hard. They then
focus on the highly probable prospects first. The be]er you have selected your prospects, the
closer your probable closing ra?on will get to that very profitable 1:2 number.
A) Prospec(ng from A to Z:
*Have a defined monthly target list.
*Set aside a quiet ?me every week and make it the same ?me so that this ac?vity becomes a
habit.
*Do a Google search on the company (and the key individuals).
*Find a link
*A link is a connec?on point between your services and the client’s business.
*Become a detec?ve and search the net for all kinds of clues that give you a be]er
understanding of your prospect.
*Be clear about their vision, mission, their customers and their suppliers – and search for links
to your product.
*Example 1: You discover your prospect is involved in a major event and you specialise in public
liability insurance.
*Example 2: You discover your client has bought a B&B or resort and you match that to a new
hospitality insurance product.
*Example 3: You discover your client is opening a branch in an oil rich country up north where
there has been terrorist ac?vity and you offer them specialised kidnap and ransom insurance.
*Plan your call – think how you can add value at every opportunity. That’s value from the
prospect’s perspec?ve, not yours – ask yourself ‘why should this person listen to me?’
*Pick up the phone
B) The Telephone Call
1. What is your aim? To get an appointment with the right person – the person you are sure
(from your research), is the one who is qualified to make a decision.
2. Introduce yourself and your company, then the reason why you are phoning. Example: “…and
the reason why I am phoning is that I see you are opening a branch in North Africa (men?on the
link) and I am sure the safety of your people there is paramount to you…”
3. Pause and invite them to comment.
Summary: Prospec(ng in 10 easy Steps:
1. The raw list of indiscriminate prospects is really just a list of names.
2. Your target is that 20% of those names you are going to research and focus on for the month.
3. Research the target
4. Find a genuine quality link.
5. Make the call.
6. Introduce yourself, then the link (don’t ask if it’s okay to talk).
7. Keep the interest factor high – show you means business (no chit chat).
8. Invite a reac?on or simply shut up (a drama?c pause).
9. Close on an agenda and mee?ng ?me.
10. Confirm via e‐mail.