3 Strategies for Sales Prospecting Success

For MSPs to thrive, they must continue to bring in new clients. Your customer base is what defines your success, so building and expanding that base is a necessity. That’s where cold calling and sales prospecting come into the picture.

Sales prospecting is the process of making outbound calls and emails to leads in an attempt to gain a new customer. It takes a lot of digging to find a lead that–when all goes well–will become a new business opportunity.

There are countless approaches to sales prospecting. To learn the most effective route for your business, we spoke with some of the best resources Datto has to offer: our MSP partners.

According to our partners, when it comes to sales prospecting, it all comes down to solving a problem a business has with your services. First, you must determine where a business is from an IT standpoint and if they are interested in outsourcing. You can learn a lot from prospects by determining whether they view outsourcing as an investment or an expense. If they view it as an expense, the company will likely look for ways to cut costs and won’t see the true value in IT. The companies that see IT as an investment will get the bigger picture. They will work alongside you to proactively solve their technology needs in order to avoid any issues down the road.

Let’s take a quick look at the three most common methods of sales prospecting:

1. Cold Calling: Nobody likes it, but cold calling is a necessary evil. It’s a major aspect of the prospecting game. Nobody wakes up in the morning feeling excited to go through and dial a list of names, but it’s one of the best ways to get your name out there with potential clients.
2. Email Campaigns: Monthly newsletters are a great place to start. You can use email to create brand recognition and to educate prospects. However, it’s important to use emails in moderation. The last thing you want is to be perceived as spam and have your emails go straight to the trash.
3. Inbound Content: Creating educational and relevant content (and sharing it out!) is a great way to get your foot in the door with a new prospect. Whether you are delivering the content via blog posts, social media, email campaigns and/or your website, inbound marketing materials can draw a prospect your way and allow you to learn more about them based on the content they are accessing. Sometimes you have to think outside the box.

Sales prospecting is all about talking to people and understanding what their needs and pain points are. You have to listen and be honest with prospects if you truly want to solve these issues. It may sound like a cliche, but when it comes to sales prospecting, aim for quality over quantity. You’ll need to dig through a vast amount of leads before you come across the right prospects and ensure you are targeting the right people, to begin with.

Think of prospecting like throwing fishing lines in the water. It will take a lot of casts, but, if you remain patient and persistent, you’ll hook what you’re looking for. For more tips and strategies on cold calling and prospecting, check out our eBook. In this eBook, we cover cold calling best practices and other successful techniques to help MSPs build quality lead lists.

Eric Torres is Channel Development Manager, Datto.

This guest blog is part of a Channel Futures sponsorship.