The fact that prospecting for new customers is vital to the success of your sales and marketing program ranks up there with the best of business “no-brainers”! However, most companies tend not to treat it this way. Historically, prospecting takes a back seat to penetrating existing customers; and why not? For years the recurring theme you’ve heard from many marketing experts has been, “it costs more to acquire and sell to new customers than it does to sell to and grow existing customers”. This dichotomy is still very sound. However, the combination of accelerating competition and a challenging economy is forcing many companies like yours to take a hard look at how to increase your level of prospecting for new customers.
Once you determine prospecting must play a larger role, however, you will likely need to address the following dilemma:

• Existing customer’s needs consume a major part of my sales people’s time.
• Sound prospecting programs are time-consuming and require ongoing repetitive tasks. They require sound structure and organization as well as increased levels of sales person accountability.

Popular CRM and sales force automation (SFA) technology offers a strategic solution for this dilemma. With the help of automation ...

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