The Pros: Stephanie Friedman and Dave Crucefix

Titles: Vice President of Sales and Marketing; Vice President of Business Development
Company: City Paper Company (asi/162267), Birmingham, AL

Q: How do you manage your time so you’re prospecting and servicing current accounts?
Stephanie Friedman: You have to carve out time to prospect, because at any moment, a client might not be yours anymore. Maybe it’s first thing in the morning, and you start your day that way, for an hour or 90 minutes. Or it’s in the afternoon or evening. Making time holds you to it. But it’s a constant battle. Sometimes you learn the hard way. You’re busy taking care of your accounts and then you realize your pipeline isn’t full. It forces you to make time to prospect. It’s actually a great lesson to learn.

Q: What do you find most challenging about prospecting?
SF: No one likes rejection, but it’s part of prospecting. We encourage our reps to anticipate it; it eases the pain. There are more ways to make prospecting warmer, like reaching out on LinkedIn and Facebook. And prospect within your current accounts, so eventually you own the whole thing.
Dave Crucefix: It depends on what’s going on. Right now I’m not seeing any prospects because I’m busy with clients. But I try to work in phone calls if I’m not in the field. It’s all about being consistent. I followed up with one of my current clients for over four years – you hear nothing, and then all of a sudden they’re your client. It’s not just about making one call or popping your head in once. And you have to follow up with current accounts too; just because you have a client doesn’t mean you have a great relationship with them.
SF: A lot of it is trial-and-error. Reps send emails and get no response. How about sending them something in the mail? There are lots of ways to get in front of people. You can’t send just one email. Like Dave said, sometimes it takes years of follow-up.

40% of sales reps say prospecting is the most challenging part of the sales process. — (Hubspot)

Q: What are your top tips for caring for customers?
DC: Set expectations on the front end. Explain your standards of service. We’ve all done something crazy for a client but it’s not something we want to do every time, and we tell them that.
SF: It’s hard to serve demanding clients especially, because you want to give them the best service possible. But be authentic and honest with them.
DC: Avoid working with clients who take up a lot of your time. Qualify accounts and orders and make sure they’ll be profitable. Look at the opportunity and say no if something isn’t right. Some reps see a $450,000 order, and they’ll go for it. But really dissect it. Determine if they’ll take up resources, or beat you down on price, or you’ll be doing your competitors’ work for them.

Q: When should a rep delegate tasks that take up selling time?
SF: We’re only capable of doing so much in a day. If we’re running ourselves ragged, how well are we thinking? Handling pressure? Look at the growth you want and then hire part-time people or an intern to help you with that.

Watch This!

In this helpful video, sales coach Tanya Aliza shares her top tips for filling the sales pipeline, including five places, both online and offline, to meet prospects. She also offers her top 20 prospecting questions to ask the people you meet in those places.