Prospecting for Sales: Key Strategies, Techniques, and Tools to Help Your Sales Reps Win New Business

Introduction

Prospecting is like a treasure hunt. In fact, that’s where the term comes from. During the California gold rush in the mid-1800s, “prospecting” was the process of digging through dirt and rocks in hopes of finding valuable nuggets of gold.

Today, prospecting for commercial services sales teams is much the same – the process of hunting through lists of names for prospects who may convert into buyers for your products and services.

In this guide, we’ll explore the art of prospecting for commercial services sales. We’ll discuss what it is and why it matters and give you prospecting strategies, workflows, tactics, and tools to help your sales team master the art of finding and closing deals.

What is Prospecting?

Definition and Importance of Sales Prospecting

Prospecting is technically the second step in a traditional sales process. Following the “lead research” phase of a sales cycle, prospecting is all about connecting with people who could be a perfect match for your company’s products and services.

As you can imagine, traditional prospecting can be a real grind. It takes a lot of research, a ton of effort, a bit of luck, and a thick skin to handle the constant rejection that comes with pursuing a sale.

But here’s the thing: prospecting is still one of the best ways to generate deals! That’s why, according to Salesforce, lead research and prospecting still take up about 21% of a sales rep’s week. That translates to around 1.5 to 2 hours a day- a significant chunk of time dedicated to just one task!

This is exactly why prospecting tools were created—to help sales pros identify and reach out to potential customers more effectively and in way less time. We’ll come back to this in a moment- first, let’s talk about how prospecting for sales kicks off the sales process.

Understanding Prospecting in the Sales Process

As you know, the sales process involves multiple stages—beginning with identifying a prospect and hopefully ending in a closed/won deal. Prospecting is the foundation of this process, where you make the first contact with a prospective customer and set the tone for your relationship.

The Sales Prospecting Process

A traditional sales cycle typically includes 5-7 steps, depending on your industry. These steps are:

1. Identify Your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP): Identify target accounts, titles, or customer profiles to prospect.
2. Research Leads: Gather information about the company and its pain points and identify key decision-makers.
3. Generate Leads: Identify potential customers through referrals, events, social media, SEO/SEM, and more.
4. Create Tailored Outreach & Qualify: Craft personalized outreach and qualify leads.
5. Pitch/Offer Solution: Present your solution to the prospect.
6. Close: Close the deal.

Here are some tips to help you maximize each step:

How to Identify Top Target Accounts and Quickly Research Leads

To identify top accounts to target, consider the single biggest factor that makes this person or property a great fit for your products and services. For many commercial services sales reps, this will be easy as you’re targeting properties with very specific assets or utilities, such as commercial HVAC systems, backup generators, elevators, waste management, pest control, and parking lots that need to be coated or paved.

This is where sales prospecting tools like Convex can make a huge difference. Instead of filtering through large databases of names and spending hours on research, Convex’s Atlas platform uses a simple property intelligence interface that works similarly to the maps app on your phone. Need to find a hospital? Atlas can show you all of the hospitals in your territory. Trying to focus on office buildings? Atlas can show you all of those, too.

Best of all, you can also see lead scores or intent signals and strictly focus on the ones most likely to buy- but we’ll get to that in a second.

Creating Custom Outreach and Qualifying Prospects

Before the advent of lead generation platforms and prospecting tools, “inside” sales reps, sales development reps (SDRs), and business development reps (BDRs) would take the list of target accounts from the sales and marketing teams, make initial contact with a prospect, qualify them, and then hand them off to an Account Executive (AE) or Field sales person to close.

These days, you can automate the whole process using Convex’s sales intelligence tool. In Atlas, you can type one prompt into the search field (e.g., “hotel”) and generate an entire list of all the hotels in your territory. You can find high-quality leads in your target market and use Convex’s Generative AI to send a personalized message that’s been trained on your data and theirs. This means your messages will always be relevant and personalized to your lead, leading to higher response rates.

Pitching the Right Solution for Your Prospect’s Pain Points

The final step in traditional prospecting is pitching your solution. By this point, you’ve done the research and identified and qualified potential leads already, and now it’s time to present your product or service as a solution to their pain points.

To make the best pitch possible, you must thoroughly understand your prospect’s needs and how your product or service can address them.

Traditionally, this would’ve been an “educated guess” or a “shot in the dark.” But with Convex’s access to intent data and buying signals, this is where Atlas comes in again- with detailed property and sales intelligence tools, and insights to active searches in your market,  you can tailor your pitch specifically to each prospect based on their unique property and needs. This level of personalization can make all the difference in closing a deal.

Closing and Nurturing the Relationship

Finally, closing the deal is the last step in the sales prospecting process. However, just because you’ve closed a deal doesn’t mean your job is over. It’s important to continue nurturing the relationship with your customer to ensure future business and potential upsells or referrals.

This is where CRM platforms like Salesforce come into play. They allow you to track interactions and manage ongoing relationships with clients.

Sales Prospecting Strategies and Techniques

Prospecting Strategies

Now that you understand the sales prospecting process, it’s time to explore some key strategies and techniques to maximize its effectiveness. This section we’ll dive into the best practices for creating an ideal customer profile, personalizing your outreach, delivering value, and building relationships.

1. Create an Ideal Customer Profile:

Before you start prospecting, the key is to understand who your ideal customer is clearly. This helps you target the right prospects and ensures your messaging resonates with them. To create an ideal customer profile (ICP), consider the following factors:

• Company, property, tenants, and industry (firmographic, property intelligence, or geographic data)
• Job title and decision-making authority
• Pain points and challenges that fit your products and services
• Lead Scores and strength of buying signals
• Goals and motivations
• Buying behavior and preferences

When it’s complete, a target avatar or ICP can be as detailed as John Doe, Facilities Manager at University Hospital in Los Angeles, who reports to the Hospital Administrator and the Hospital’s Board and has a team of 5 maintenance technicians. He’s looking for sustainable energy solutions that save money and reduce carbon emissions but must comply with strict state regulations. John is responsible for maintenance budgeting and capital improvement projects. This will help you create messaging that’s relevant to him.

2. Personalize Your Outreach:

Personalization is key in sales prospecting- generic messages tend to be ignored, deleted, or even marked as “spam.” By using Convex’s Generative AI technology, you can personalize your messaging based on intent scores, account data, and buying signals. This creates a highly relevant message that stands out to the prospect.

You can also use personalization techniques such as mentioning specific pain points or referencing recent news or events related to the prospect’s industry or company. This shows that you’ve done your research and are genuinely interested in their business.

3. Deliver Value and Build Relationships:

As the old saying goes, “People buy from individuals they know, like, and trust.” Even if the prospect isn’t ready to buy, you can build a relationship and demonstrate that you provide value. This can be done by providing helpful resources, such as industry reports or whitepapers, offering advice or insights or even sharing success stories from previous clients.

This builds trust with the prospect and keeps your brand at the top of their mind when they are ready to make a purchasing decision. It also increases the likelihood of them referring you to others in their network.

Prospecting Techniques

Before we talk about the specific tools to use, let’s cover the broad strokes and some current top sales prospecting tips and techniques that sales reps use to identify leads and close deals.

Cold Calling

Cold calling is an old classic, but more fun ways exist to generate leads. According to our internal research, it takes six calls for a decision-maker to convert into a sale. The challenge here is that most sales reps quit calling after two calls. But there are some great benefits:

• Cold calling is an effective way to get free real-time responses from prospects.

• It’s also a great way to build new customer relationships through personalized conversations.

• Finally, it skips easy-to-forget channels like social media platforms and email, meaning you can directly address the prospect’s pain points.

Cold Email

Cold emailing is a less intrusive and easier way to reach potential customers. However, those factors can also make it less effective than sending a piece of direct mail or even cold calling.

A well-executed cold email strategy can kickstart great conversations with prospects and lead to the shortest sales cycle… however, if it’s done poorly, your message may end up in a “spam” folder, potentially flagging your company’s domain and negatively impacting your ability to send emails. Here are some cold email best practices to help you skip the “spam box:”

• Personalize Your Emails: Tailoring your message to address the prospect’s specific needs, interests, or pain points can significantly increase engagement. Use their name and reference their business or industry challenges to demonstrate that you’ve done your research. 
• Create a Compelling Subject Line: The subject line is your first impression, so make it count. Ensure it is concise and enticing, providing a glimpse of the value your email offers. Aim for brevity while maintaining clarity.
• Offer Value Upfront: Rather than diving directly into a sales pitch, offer something of value in your initial outreach—such as insights, resources, or a quick tip that resonates with their current situation. This establishes credibility and positions you as a helpful resource.
• Include a Clear Call-to-Action (CTA): Every cold email should conclude with a clear and specific CTA that prompts the prospect to take the next step, whether it’s scheduling a call, replying to the email, or accessing additional resources.
• Follow-up: Don’t hesitate to follow up if you don’t receive a response. A well-timed follow-up can remind prospects of your initial outreach and increase the chances of engagement. Be persistent but respectful, spacing out your follow-up attempts appropriately.

Convex’s Generative AI can create high-converting personalized outreach messages in seconds. Our system is trained on sales intelligence, property intelligence, and contact data to make messaging relevant and timely.

Referrals

Referrals are the most powerful, warmest, and least expensive (aka, “FREE”) way to generate leads. With a simple question like, “Who do you know that probably needs this service as well?” you can leverage the trust and credibility of existing customers to introduce you to potential customers who have a significantly higher likelihood to buy.

• Ask existing customers to refer to mutual connections, leave ratings, or make testimonial videos for you.

• Use questions like the one above to streamline your prospecting process and reach warmer leads who are more likely to trust you based on the social capital you’ve created.

Networking

Networking plays a vital role in long-term lead generation- but it’s definitely not a “get rich quick” strategy. Networking allows sales professionals to build relationships, exchange valuable information, and tap into personal connections that can facilitate warm introductions to potential clients. If done correctly, this is also a warm source of leads, but it requires consistent effort.

• Build relationships through in-person events, webinars, or social media interactions.

• Use LinkedIn to expand your network and share valuable content to your audience.

• Attend industry events and conferences to connect with your potential buyers and customers.

Now that you have the techniques down, let’s talk about the tools themselves.

Sales Prospecting Tools and Technology

In today’s digital world, where many people spend more time online than they do away from technology, sales prospecting tools and tech are super important for making the sales process smoother and more efficient.

Tools like sales intelligence, property intelligence, and lead generation not only give sales development representatives visibility into prospects’ needs but also streamline sales and outreach and help sales reps manage communication easily.

The Power of Sales Intelligence, Property Intelligence, and Lead Generation Tools

Think of these sales intelligence solutions more like an automated Sales Development Representative (SDR) who gathers information on a prospect, learns what they need, scores their level of interest, and then passes them along to a salesperson to close the deal. These tools do the “grunt work,” making prospecting easier, showing salespeople which opportunities are most likely to close, and helping increase conversions.

Types of Sales Prospecting Tools

There are several types of automated sales intelligence and prospecting tools that can help sales teams streamline their efforts. These include:

• Sales Intelligence Software: Tools like LinkedIn Sales Navigator and Convex provide comprehensive insights into potential customers, including contact details, property or company information, social media profiles, and even lead scores, so your team knows which sales prospects to prioritize.
• Property Intelligence Platforms: Specifically designed for real estate professionals or commercial services businesses, solutions like CoStar and Convex use detailed public and private property data that can help identify leads with a high potential to convert.
• Lead Generation Tools: Lead Generation tools automate the process of finding and qualifying leads, saving time and effort. Tools like Convex, LinkedIn Sales Navigator, Cognism, and more have a wealth of information about the accounts that your team is looking to sell to, making the sales process simpler and more efficient.

Once you have one of these solutions, integrating it with a CRM can have huge benefits.

Leveraging CRM and Intelligence Platforms

Customer relationship management (CRM) systems like Hubspot and Salesforce can organize data from intelligence platforms into actionable, easy-to-manage formats.

For example, when a prospect doesn’t respond to an outreach message but has a high lead score, you can create an opportunity and drop them into a nurture sequence to keep them engaged. By integrating these tools, you can have a 360-degree view of your prospects, which enables sales to close more deals, drive revenue growth, and achieve their sales goals.

Effective Communication in Sales Prospecting

Effective communication is super important in sales prospecting. It’s not just about getting your message across; it’s also about really listening to what your prospects need and care about. By asking the right questions and creating compelling messages, you can build trust and connect with them on a deeper level.

Asking the Right Questions

Use sales-probing questions to gather information and encourage conversation. Ask open-ended questions that begin with what, how, or why to encourage the prospect to share their thoughts and feelings. Some examples of sales-probing questions include:

• What are your biggest challenges in [industry/field]?
• How do you currently handle [specific task or process]?
• Why are you looking for a new [product/service]?

Crafting Compelling Email and Social Media Messages

When it comes to email and social media messages, being “clear and concise” is key. Use clear and concise subject lines and bodies to grab the reader’s attention.

Include a call to action to encourage the reader to respond. Use social media platforms to engage with sales prospects and build relationships. Here are some tips for crafting compelling email and social media messages:

• Use a clear and concise subject line that grabs the reader’s attention.
• Keep the body of the email brief and to the point.
• Include a call to action to encourage the reader to respond.
• Use social media platforms to engage with sales prospects and build relationships.

Optimizing the Sales Prospecting Process

Optimizing your sales prospecting involves monitoring performance and tweaking things as you go. By tracking how well your outreach strategies are working, you can spot areas that need improvement and change your approach to get better results.

Tracking Performance and Making Adjustments

To optimize the sales prospecting process, you need to track performance and adjust as needed. Here are some steps you can take:

• Monitor and analyze the effectiveness of your outreach strategies.
• Use data and analytics to track your lead conversion rate and identify areas for improvement.
• Adjust your approach based on what’s working and what isn’t.

Tweaking your sales prospecting strategies and using the right tools will improve the quality of your outreach and increase your chances of closing more deals!

Best Practices for Sales Reps

Tips for Successful Sales Prospecting

Here are some best practices for sales reps to keep in mind:

• Start with smaller lists of better-qualified sales prospects. This will help you hone your ICP and pitch to prospective customers who better fit your solutions.
• Create effective lists of potential buyers with accurate B2B data. Using the right tools is like stepping out of the Stone Age. Lead scores and buying signals can help you separate “looky-loos” from buys and better focus your attention on deals that are likely to close.
• Focus on hitting your sales goals with a smaller list of qualified prospects. I get that this might go against common wisdom, but if you’re building relationships with the right prospects, you don’t need to stretch yourself so thin. That way, you can avoid the stress and stay focused on closing deals.
• Prioritize quality over quantity in your sales prospecting efforts. Quality deals often take less work, and the buyers are motivated. Quality deals can also be much larger, and the relationships that develop from them lead to much higher lifetime customer values (LTV).

Following these best practices can optimize your sales prospecting process and achieve better results. Remember always to consider the prospect’s needs and concerns and adjust your approach accordingly.

Conclusion

Prospecting for sales is an important part of the sales process—it lays the groundwork for everything that comes next in the sales funnel. When sales teams understand the prospecting process, use different techniques, and have the right tools at their disposal, they can ramp up their efforts and accelerate revenue growth!

In this guide, we’ve explored the art of prospecting for commercial services sales, discussing what it is and why it matters. We’ve also provided prospecting strategies, workflows, tactics, and the best sales intelligence tools to help sales teams master the art of finding and closing deals. What you do with these tips is up to you.But, if you’re ready to transform your sales prospecting strategy – Schedule a demo with Convex today and see how our tools can help you make sales prospecting methods faster, better, and more efficient.