Sales Prospecting

We might live in an ‘automation era’, but that doesn’t mean all things get from point A to B by themselves. It’s up to logistics companies to provide all the transportation that is needed in our very much globalised world.

But transport and logistics face challenges. Such as prospecting, finding sales opportunities, or even completely new customers. Because, how do you find companies that need your logistics services now or in the near future? In this article, you will learn the best ways to prospect in the logistics sector.

Look, generating lists of prospects fitting your target industry, company size and title is easy. But calling blindly through prospect lists with a generic pitch just doesn’t cut the mustard in modern B2B sales. a crowded space like recruitment and staffing. In those first five seconds of a cold call or first three lines of an email, you’ll have to win that prospect over with a well-informed argument no other sales rep came up with.

You need sales intelligence.

When the going gets tough, the tough test new ideas. In the recent weeks of economic downturn, many business owners have been forced to look for alternative ways to bring in revenue. And one of the most popular ways has been going digital: leaping into the unknown and setting up an ecommerce website, or doubling down on an existing one.

In today's hyper-competitive business landscape, a canned sales pitch is more likely to lead to the person on the other side of the line hanging up on you mid-sentence than an encouraging "please, tell me more."

Company data is the solution to fixing poorly targeted sales efforts. When you only connect with companies when there's a data-driven reason to do so, and tailor your messaging according to the prospect’s situation and needs, you'll significantly improve your hit rate in every step of the sales process.

Salespeople and gold miners have a lot in common. No, I don’t mean the tireless ambition, the deep-rooted desire to be successful, and the unstoppable drive for precious minerals. Instead, salespeople and miners share one key activity: prospecting.

The terms prospect, lead and buying signal are all well-known to B2B sales professionals, but their differences can be unclear. In part, the reason is that different CRM and marketing automation providers are using the terms in different ways. That's why we feel a clarification between prospect, lead and buying signal, and their roles in sales process, seems appropriate.

Our definition is very close to the framework used by HubSpot among others, and helps unify the conversation within a sales team, and further enhance sales and marketing alignment, or smarketing. Be sure to clarify sales terminology in your sales playbook!

During outbound’s period of greatness, the sales department at pretty much every company outnumbered the marketing department by far. As inbound grew stronger, marketing departments did the same and some companies came to only trust inbound activities to drive business to the company.

Today, the fastest growing companies in the world are doing both outbound and inbound, the frontrunners combining these two processes with a strong data-driven approach.

The most successful sales organizations are the ones working systematically. To do that you have to have clearly defined goals, KPIs, and relentlessly measure and monitor how your sales and marketing efforts contribute to help you reach them.

This is why performance sales development teams have well thought out KPIs that are being tracked daily, weekly and monthly.

With modern technology, the question is not what you can measure, but what you benefit from measuring. Following the right metrics will help you as a B2B sales executive evaluate the performance of your team and steer them in the right future direction. Measuring the wrong or additional metrics will simply take precious time away from the things that matter.

Many professionals say sales prospecting is the most challenging step in the entire sales process. It requires crazy good research skills to find not only the prospects most likely to convert but also the right angle and time to reach out. Building a healthy pipeline can be tough, so why wouldn't you tap into technology?

Often when we talk about sales prospecting we talk about outbound sales prospecting. This is the process of finding new companies that match your Ideal Customer Profile, companies that you should reach out to and try to persuade into becoming your customers.

In this article, we'll instead focus on inbound sales prospecting. Inbound sales prospecting is, simply put, about scrolling through leads that marketing automation workflow provides.