There’s prospecting — and then there’s good prospecting. The latter appeals to prospects and makes them want to engage with you, rather than delete your email or hang up the phone. Few sales professionals enjoy prospecting, but it’s a necessary part of the job. The more prospects you generate, the more opportunities you have to turn them into clients.

The key to prospecting well is to prospect with intention, according to Anthony Natoli, a strategic AE at Lattice. He says that even though most people don’t like being prospected, they still book meetings and genuinely enjoy some approaches.

In this issue of Promotional Consultant Today, we outline Natoli’s process for how you can create a better experience for your prospects and book more meetings.

1. Create a plan. Don’t just wing it when you decide who you will target, Natoli says. Instead, he suggests using LinkedIn Sales Navigator to filter your target account list. For example, you could use filters to look for things like job function, seniority and who has changed jobs in the last 90 days. Then, choose 5 or so people from each target account and add to your messaging sequence.

2. Develop the messaging. Natoli says that people tend to ignore most sales outreach because it focuses on the seller rather than the buyer. To create a better experience for your prospects, you should first show that you understand their problems and how your solution can resolve the symptoms of those problems. Natoli recommends creating three problem statements for each persona. He says each problem statement should equal one email touch. For example, an email may look like:

Subject: No more than 3 words
First line: Brief intro
Second line: Proposed persona-based problem statement
Third line: Solution
Fourth line: Interest-based CTA

3. Focus on prospect engagement. Your messaging should always meet the prospect where they are in the buyer’s journey, Natoli says, which is why prospect engagement is so important. Some ways you can gauge engagement include monitoring who is opening your emails and interacting with your content on LinkedIn. Once you have these signals, Natoli says you can formulate your messaging appropriately. He likes to use what he calls the “triple touch.” It looks like this:

Day 1:
Step 1: Call with voicemail
Step 2: Email
Step 3: LinkedIn view

Day 3:
Step 1: Call (no voicemail)
Step 2: Relevant bump email (reply to email #1)

Day 4:
Step 1: LinkedIn connection request

Try this approach and see if you improve your reply rate. Natoli says that when he uses this process, he averages an 80% open rate on his emails and gets a 30% reply rate. Start by being strategic about who you want to prospect to and then begin to build your message geared toward those prospects. When done properly, prospecting can help you keep your sales pipeline full of leads.

Compiled by Audrey Sellers

Source: Anthony Natoli is a strategic AE at Lattice.