We think of prospecting as the process of creating attention and interest in your brand to win a conversation to explore your products or services more deeply. The main goal of prospecting is to create interest and enough interest to move that interest into a conversation. Prospecting is a critical part of your marketing efforts however; it needs to be treated as a separate marketing activity focused on producing a list of potential leads which are then nurtured, qualified and when ready given to sales to begin the sales process. It is not the main goal of prospecting to find someone currently looking to purchase, the goal is to bring awareness to your brand, product or service so when ready to purchase you are included in the buying process. You will find people who are ready to buy but if your only goal is to only find these people you will not be successful at prospecting.

To successfully find new prospects you will need a combination of marketing tactics that over time will bring prospects closer to incorporating your brand in their buying decision. Your prospecting strategy will need to incorporate a marketing automation product to automate this process to track and report on all the activity and touches with each prospect. Therefore our goal is to find people who have a desire to solve a problem but haven’t yet started looking into how they can solve it. Furthermore, if you’re the one who can gain their attention and stimulate interest in your offering you will be a thought leader...one who can shape the buyer's understanding and the importance of solving their problem and in a position to shape their views. So, when that prospect is ready to buy they will know your brand can address their problem and you will be part of the buying process.