Prospecting Spotlight: Expansion

Prospecting Spotlight: How Expansion Opens New Doors

When prospecting, strategically timing your messaging is critical for success. Last month’s feature highlighted the benefits of reaching out to decision makers when they take on a new role. Today, we focus on how to leverage news of a prospect’s expansion into closing your next deal.

Expansion takes on many shapes. Enabling a news alert feed for companies on your target account list puts updates on acquisitions, employee growth, product launches, new location openings, or any other noteworthy occurrences on your radar.

The moment an opportunity to reach out presents itself, drop your target contacts a quick note and follow it with a phone call – the gist of the message should be positive and brief. Just like with the first post in our Prospecting Spotlight series, your goal at this moment is simply making contact.

Once you have your decision maker’s attention, gently probe to see if they are experiencing any growing pains. Present your prospect with some common business objectives found within their industry through a success story you helped to create. If any of these are of interest, ask for the opportunity to meet to learn more. You are in the driver’s seat if this works.

Sometimes you will find yourself positioned as the answer to their problem before it becomes a problem. If this is the case, patience is necessary. Now that you made your introduction, if you did your job well, the prospect will get in touch when the timing is appropriate on their end.

When the conversation picks up again, be sure to create a connection to them again with your customer success stories. Show how your solution helped others with similar problems. Leave your prospect wondering what you can offer to help them.

Here is the secret behind the effectiveness of using news of expansion as an excuse to introduce yourself: you are catching prospects when they are planning ahead and forecasting new budgets. The earlier you set up a meeting, the sooner you can be a part of that budget.

News of expansion is a great reason to reach out to decision makers on your target account list. They will feel honored you associate them with the success of the company, and be far more open to a conversation.

Our next post will discuss how we can use the news of a prospect’s recent awards and accomplishments to start the conversation in a similar way, making the most of a fortuitous time.