To succeed in the sales profession, a sales professional must master prospecting. Prospecting is one of the most challenging and significant stages of the sales process. A sales professional could be the best presenter in the world but will not experience a lot of success without a pipeline filled with quality prospects. Selling is a numbers game and the more quality prospects a sales representative have, the more chances the representative will have to produce sales. Below are 7 steps to successful prospecting.

1. Locate Your Marketplace: determine a market where you can meet your prospects’ needs with your product offerings. Also by gaining a deep understanding of this niche, you can earn the trust of your prospects.

2. Target Your Promising Prospects: compile an archive of potential prospects within your niche. Lead lists, the Internet, personal contacts, and library resources are sources you can utilize.

3. Screen Your Potential Prospects: qualify your potential customers based on having the authority to make a purchase decision, a need for your product offering, and sufficient financial resources. During the first contact, you may have to fully screen prospects.

4. Develop a Prospecting Script: create a script to stay focused and persistent as you briefly demonstrate the value you can offer by providing solutions to your prospects’ problems. Also create responses for popular objections or rebuttals you expect to encounter.

5. Determine Initial Contact Preference: decide whether to utilize mail, personal connections, and/or referrals to transform your initial contact with potential customers from “cold” to “warm”.

6. Make Contact with Your Prospects: contact your prospects and use your prospecting script to ask for the sale or generate a meeting to present your product offering.

7. Plan Your Work and Work Your Plan: develop daily, weekly, and monthly prospecting goals and reserve time to meet these aspirations to ensure you keep a pipeline primed with qualified prospects.

By mastering the 7 steps to successful prospecting, you will establish a solid foundation to a rewarding, exciting, and lucrative sales career.