Develop A Prospect List

Title page

Develop a prospect line

Plan

The sales funnel diagram is an inverted chart that gives illustration of the steps involved in the sales process. The top of the sales funnel is broader that represents the largest prospective buyers. The funnel diagram identifies the process involved in selling the B2B product Microsoft Azure that is a cloud computing service Azure offers a complete solution to clients for building applications. The common features of Azure sold include database, computing, networking and storage.

Microsoft Azure solution sales focuses on reaching the business decision-maker or respective buyer. A sales proocess involve steps taken by a sales person to reach a prospective buyer from initial stage to awareness to a closed sale. It provides overview of customers journey frrom reallization that they have a need for making actual purchase CITATION Ber11 \l 1033 (Jansen, 2011). The sales process stresses on determining where to start as the primary concern is to identify the need of customers. The first step of the sales process include prospecting in which the focus is on identifying potential customer. It will be sold to IT developers, small and medium sized businesses allowing them to create, deploy and manage applications. This stage will also consider if the clients will be able to afford the service or not. It further evaluates if the customer needing the product can afford it or not. Business to business especially target individuals who can't keep working in their unique post because of limitations of different sorts. Microsoft Azure offers them different features that suit their capabilities and capacities, fitting work that helps in adding value to their work. Thusly, this turns appreciation of value into the creation of value. The second stage is preparation in which initial contact is established with the prospect customer and collecting information for understanding their preferences. Market research is conducted in which all relevant information is collected about the customers (Jiang et al., 2009). Microsoft Azure will be able to cater needs of potential customers such as by helping them in developing modern applications, building infrastructure and in gaining insights from the data. The product will provide solution for the cloud platform. Sales presentation is developed that focuses on addressing the needs of clients.

Third stage of sales process is approach in which contact is maintained with the client. Different channels are used for reaching the clients such as face-to-face meetings or video chat. For selling Microsoft Azure the best solution is ‘Product Approach’ in which free trial version is offered to the clients. This will allow the customers to evaluate the product and increase their possibilities of buying it CITATION Mol19 \l 1033 (Clarke, 2019). The fourth stage is presentation in which it is determined how the product will cater the needs of customers. PowerPoint will be created and shared with the customers that will provide information about the features and usability of Azure. This will address the components as; what business problem will Azure solve? What would be the total cost of the solution? And how Azure is better from other cloud computing services? Handling sales objections is the next stage that will focus on listening the concerns of the clients. This is an important stage that declined the possibilities of sales drop and pursuits of rejection. This suggests that 80% of Azure sales required at least five follow-ups. The next stage is closing in which decision from the client is received and the proceedings are carried out. For selling Microsoft Azure it is more appropriate to choose alternative choice close CITATION Bur15 \l 1033 (Fewel, 2015). In this method will allow customers to pay either in cash or the whole amount in cash. The final stage of the funnel diagram is follow-up in which focus is on maintaining contract with the customers. After selling Azure the customers will be contacted for using them in referrals.

Sales Prospect list

Leads:

BBQFun visited the website for database.

IT developers visited the page for computing.

Net App purchased computing services.

Small-sized businesses visited networking.

Medium-sized businesses visited computing services.

Online Inc purchased database services.

They visited the pages on website related to database, computing, networking and storage.

They have bought some of the products.

They have bought similar products.

Target audience:

The companies targeted include 7-50 employees.

The targeted clients were struggling with technologies.

Customer profiles were viewed for identifying critical trigger points.

Microsoft Azure is advertised online and product is recommended to peers.

Social media platforms are identified that will raise opportunities of targeting customers.

B2B sales professional research is conducted for getting better insights about the client’s concerns.

Google notifications are used for identifying trigger events, brand mentions and news related to it.

84% of the buyers users a referral for kicking-off the buying process.

9 in every 10 decisions are made on the response of peers.

47% of top performances are using referrals.

62% of the customers are happy giving referrals.

40% of the clients managed to gain accurate data.

Lead generating cost was mentioned by customers.

Over 500 million people are using LinkedIn, that is a great place for finding potential consumers.

Advanced filters such as cloud computing is used for finding prospective customers.

Twitter is popular platform that engage millions of customers and will target them.

People who conduct research about cloud computing or visit such products are targeted.

Customers managed to save costs by using Microsoft Azure.

Companies searching for online computing and data services.

Response

There is no formula to generate an accurate sales prospects list. However it is possible to follow some strategies that will allow identifying the right customers. If I was the salesperson selling this product I would be confident that I have generated a good prospect list because it is based on the market research that include adequate data about the prospective customers of Microsoft Azure. By targeting these sources I would manage to target the right customers without wasting time. This will save me from searching for the actual customers. I believe that the prospects list has covered all platforms that could provide maximum potential customers for the Microsoft Azure. I have used the advanced B2B search capabilities for determining the right customers. The contact information of the possible customers and their engagement at social platforms can be used for reaching them.

My first call will be to the customers who purchased cloud-computing services. This will increase the possibilities of selling Microsoft Azure to these customers because they are already using computing services. My second call will be to the People who conduct research about cloud computing or visit such products are targeted. Although these customers may not have used cloud computing but they exhibits high likelihood of using it in future. I could convince them to avail Azure by explaining the benefits. My third call will be to customers who have bought some of the products. This is because their likelihood of purchasing Azure is high. They are already familiar with the product so it would be easy to persuade them.

References

BIBLIOGRAPHY Clarke, M. (2019). How to Build the Ultimate Sales Prospect List . Retrieved 07 27, 2019, from https://blog.zoominfo.com/build-sales-prospect-list/

Fewel, B. (2015). Selling Microsoft Azure . Retrieved 07 27, 2019, from https://blogs.partner.microsoft.com/mpn/selling-microsoft-azure/

Jansen, B. J. (2011). BIDDING ON THE BUYING FUNNEL FOR SPONSORED SEARCH AND KEYWORD ADVERTISING. Journal of Electronic Commerce Research , 12 (1).

Jiang, Y., A. Cho, and R. Adaval. (2009). "The unique consequences of feeling lucky: Implications for consumer behavior," Journal of Consumer Psychology, Vol. 19, No. 2: 171-184.