Hunters don’t just wander through forests for the annual prized deer, they are careful not to leave traces of his existence along the deer path. Hunters are careful not to use any man made scent that will alert prey. Camouflage clothing hides them from their sight. He walks the trail slowly, deliberately, aware of all the surroundings and looking for clues on the trail. He is focused, listening and looking for signs that will lead to a prime opportunity to seize at the right moment.

This article is about what to do when hunting for new business prospects. Now place yourself on a quest for new and profitable prospects. You will find that there are similarities between hunting for deer and hunting for new business. For example, when out hunting for new business, we don’t want the business to know we are looking for them. We may conceal our identity, as a salesperson, to gather more information. Just as the deer hunter doesn’t run through the woods yelling, “here deer, here nice deer”. We won’t do the same to announce our presence either. Instead, we will quietly look for signs of a profitable prospect on the internet or through questions we ask, to confirm an ideal business prospect.

Tracking for Footprints of Prospects
From the footprints of an animal, we can tell what size they are. We can tell if they were running or limping. The same is true with businesses, it might be information published about their size, their mission statements, internet resources or just by asking the receptionist about the company. Some businesses make available large footprints of information on themselves.

We have to know what we are looking for, if we are to be efficient hunters. We must do our homework and learn what the profile of a profitable prospect is. In most cases our customer files determine who our best clients are. If that is not available, then we can go to our friends in the business and learn whom their best clients are. If a good client in one sector of the country requires someone’s services then someone in our woods will probably need our services. These profiles are great ways for associates in business to share prospect hunting information.

Validate and Verify Prospects
To begin this exercise, we should run a list of our top clients and examine them closely to determine what makes them different from similar businesses in their industry. What makes them unique? If they have items we can measure, those are the best to use. For example, how many employees, what is their annual sales volume and how many members or customers do they service? Is there a specialty they are involved with? These are just a few suggestions.

Once we have this list, we want to know what ways we can use to separate our list of similar prospects. Some of this will be done over the internet. What ever remains on the list which we can’t separate, we need to ask them a few questions over the telephone. One of the best sources for this, is to speak with a salesperson for the company. you know that they often love to talk and brag about their company. For example, ask yourself, what separates you from the competition. I’m sure you have an answer too.

Once we have validated and verified our list to a short one we can target them more directly for business and we won’t be wasting our time. We will graduate to efficient prospect hunters.

Steve Martinez teaches business how to out smart and out wit the competition by automating and customizing ACT and Outlook with the best practices of sales. http://www.sellingmagic.com

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