Nothing will provide more lasting benefit for a sales department or a sales person than ‘The List.’ All the sales techniques you can think of will not provide a return as valuable as that of an accurate, appropriate, well maintained and regularly communicated with client and prospect list.

Yet, it’s unusual to encounter an organization that maintains a prospect list. That’s usually left to the salesperson. The business usually doesn’t benefit from the salesperson’s prospect list although the business has paid the salesperson to prospect.

It’s puzzling to me why any business reliant on sales doesn’t commit resources to building, grooming and communicating with a prospect list. The more familiar and comfortable a potential buyer is with your company, your sales representative and your business proposition, the more likely he or she is to buy.

Case 1: Here’s an example of how the absence of a prospect list is costly and time consuming. Company A manufactures and sells capital equipment and has about ten salespeople each with a geographical territory. Sales representatives make systematic in-person cold calls prospecting for sales opportunities. The company provides a salary, commission and benefits. It’s a competitive industry and salesperson turnover is high. Typically, each sales person cold calls about 20 businesses, in person, daily, gathering buyers’ contact information, profiling business’ needs and noting competitive supplier information. The sales person retains that information for future follow up. Sometimes it ends up in the sales person’s database; but almost never for the benefit of the company. All of this is valuable information that should be preserved and used for regular contact. The prospecting work has been done. It should only be done once per prospective client. Yet each time a salesperson leaves the company, the replacement sales rep goes out to make those cold calls again repeating what has already been done. And that process is repeated every time a new sales person comes into the territory.

If overall sales outcomes are dependent, at least in part, on the number of attempted sales; then you need to capture each prospect efficiently and communicate with that prospect regularly about what he or she is likely to buy and why your offering is going to be the best choice. I can guarantee most of your competitors are not doing this in an organized, effective way. The advantage you will have is enormous: Keep in touch with your buying decision makers, appropriately, with information that is useful, that is a reminder of the benefits you provide and of how to do business with you. Doing that will make you a preferred supplier and give you top of mind positioning. And you’ll get the call when the prospect develops a need. It goes without saying that you must do the same with existing clients. There is no easier way to get future business than from an existing client.

The aspect of building a list that stands the test of time and that steadily builds your revenue stream is such an important issue that I am going to devote the next article to the same topic with more detail.

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