Blog Series - Sales Statistics Part 2 (Prospecting)

Drumrolls! Here it is. This is the second blog in our ‘Sales Statistics’ blog series. In our first blog, we covered interesting (and some scary) details around Sales eMails with the aim to help you refine your B2B sales. 

For this second one, we wanted to take a step back and focus on Prospecting. Now, we have all heard that prospecting is important and that you will be way less effective if you prospect wrong. But what really is prospecting? 

prospecting

/prəˈspɛkt/

to search or explore (a region)

And to extrapolate that to the sales process, prospecting then becomes - the process by which sales representatives identify potential customers, aka prospects. 

We can talk more on prospecting and how to be effective at that, but this blog is for something else. So here goes.

  • 42% of sales representatives say prospecting is the hardest part of their job. The rest say it’s closing (36%) or qualifying (22%)

  • 82% of top-performing salespeople spend 4 hours or more per day on prospecting.

  • 71% of sales reps say that data entry comes in their way of prospecting. If taken away, they believe that can be more effective

  • 90% of salespeople use 2+ contact info providers to find the right contact details of their leads (Ouch! That must be expensive)

  • 87% cold calls would be hung up on before the sales rep even completes their sentence. (Ouch ouch!)

  • Eight in 10 prospects prefer talking to reps over email

  • 80% of prospects deny 2 or more times before finally saying yes to purchase a product/services

  • 92% percent of sales representatives give up on a prospect after four negative answers

  • More than 75% of prospect will respond to you if they connect with your product or service - building that connect is not easy

  • 50% of buyers choose the vendor that reaches out or responds to them first

  • Storytelling is one of the best mechanisms for prospecting - Post first interaction (eMail etc.), 63% of leads remember stories. Only 5% remember statistics.

And we wanted to end with some quick tips for effective sales prospecting (use this as just a guide and adapt it for your specific company).

  • Know who you want to sell to before reaching out to them - create an ideal prospect profile

  • Identify the platform you want to reach out to on - eMails, events, etc.

  • Keep your lead list current - a stale list helped no one

  • Reach out with a personalised messaging - trust us, it works

  • Referrals are very effective - if you know how to ask for them effectively

  • Content plays a huge role in building confidence

  • Followup - there is no alternative to that

HOPE THIS IS USEFUL. ALSO, IF YOU NEED HELP IN TRANSITIONING FROM WHERE YOU ARE TODAY TO A PREDICTABLE, REPEATABLE SALES-FIRST STARTUP, OR JUST WANT TO SAY HI, OR HAVE ANY FEEDBACK, WE ARE ALWAYS A PING AWAY!

Thanks to our friends at Mashable and LinkedIn for help with some of the data.

AUTHOR:

Nick - Founder and CEO @ do.sales

do.sales