Jikke Pheninckx
The information obtained during a B2B sales meeting is worth its weight in gold. This knowledge gives you insight into the motives of your prospects, reveals who the decision makers are within the company and shows the state of affairs regarding your proposition at that moment. Processing this information correctly is extremely important for these reasons. By properly safeguarding outdated information, you can revisit it at a later date. This way, you get several benefits from this. In this blog we zoom in on the advantages and how you can store information most efficiently.
Capturing contact moments
To start, capturing all contact moments with your prospect is a good start. By all contact moments you mean telephone sales calls, but also received and sent e-mails or physical meetings. By structurally recording all contact moments, you avoid missing information that has already been shared with you, where you might find relevant hooks. Do this capturing after the conversation, however, so that you can keep your full focus on your prospect during the conversation and catch up on what he or she is saying (also read: ‘How best to hook you in a sales conversation’). However, you can note relevant parentheses or terms during the conversation that are important for later in the conversation or in a subsequent conversation, but avoid typing the entire conversation along.
Set a to-do date for next contact moment
After a contact moment with the prospect, it is important to make an assessment of when you want to get back in touch with this person. Do you give a high priority to this company? Then already put it in your calendar for next week. If the prospect himself indicates that the subject you are calling about is not currently in play, but might be of interest later, schedule it for yourself in a few months. Attaching a to-do date to a prospect is very relevant, because it means you get to sit down with an interesting prospect at the right time and no one gets overlooked because of all the busyness. We recommend agreeing on a follow-up date with your prospects so they know when to expect another call. For example, you can agree to be in touch again in three months to see how the flag is flying at that time.
Where do you process the information?
Many companies use a CRM (Customer Relationship Management) system for this reporting. The functionality we find most important about our CRM includes being able to prioritize certain prospects. Through a status code or lead forecast, you can indicate the extent to which you estimate a prospect is valuable to your own company. Companies that you rate of higher value will thus move up in your to-do list, making them less likely to be overlooked. You can also collaborate with other colleagues in a CRM. For example, when another colleague has had contact with the prospect, he or she puts it in the CRM, so you are immediately aware of it. Among other things, this prevents you and your colleague from calling the same person. This is important to maintain your company's professional image.