I believe THE most important sales prospecting advantage in 2012 will be understanding, finding and responding to buying signals. Not the late-stage signals we used to think about (questions about price, contract, delivery timing, etc.). I’m talking about pain, problems, symptoms of a problem the prospect needs to solve (whether or not they’ve gotten to the solution identification or research stage).
What are some of the things your prospective customers experience before they need what you’re selling? These buying signals are from people who aren’t yet ready to buy, but are about ready to start looking for solutions to a problem or pain. If you know your customer targets well enough, you can specifically search for those keywords and phrases from prospects on Twitter and other social channels. HootSuite, Twithawk and a variety of online (and usually free) tools can help you with that.
But before you get to the tools, make sure you know what buying signals you’re looking for in the first place. Know exactly how and why your prospects get to you, or generally get to the solution research phase. Those symptoms, those reasons, are your buying signals.
Critical for sales in the coming months.
