Background

Jennifer Hamman graduated from the state university and was hired as a sales representative for the Logistics Company. The Logistics Company is a transportation broker that links companies needing products shipped with trucking firms to carry the shipments. After an initial training program, Jennifer was given a couple of existing company customers and a small list of leads to get her started. She began by serving the shipment needs of the existing customers. This gave her some confidence, but she realized that for her to be successful, she must begin prospecting and try to identify the best sales opportunities. The Logistics Company provides an ongoing list of leads that can be accessed by all salespeople. Once a salesperson contacts one of these leads, no other salesperson can contact them. Jennifer started her prospecting by contacting these leads.

Current Situation

Jennifer has been calling a number of leads each day, but has not been very successful in generating much business. She feels like she is wasting much of her time on leads that are not good sales opportunities. The leads provided by her company are not qualified in any way and the training program she attended focused on cold calling as the basic prospecting method. Jennifer took a professional selling class in college and remembered that the chapter on prospecting emphasized the need to follow the strategic prospecting process to identify the best sales opportunities. She found her professional selling textbook, went to the chapter on prospecting, and wanted to make a strategic prospecting plan.

Questions

1. What methods should Jennifer use to generate sales leads beyond those provided by her company?
2. How should Jennifer qualify the leads provided by her company and those she generates herself? What is the profile of an ideal prospect?
3. How should Jennifer prioritize her qualified prospects?
4. What information should Jennifer collect to prepare for sales dialogue with a prospect?
5. How can Jennifer use social selling to improve her strategic prospecting process?