B2B prospection does not work?
Is it because B2B prospection does not work, or because you don't know how to do it? In truth, different things can block your success
4/2/20265 min read
What's Wrong with My B2B Prospecting?
Salespeople don't like prospecting. That's understandable, because it's an especially challenging activity. In many cases, the problem starts right there: nobody actually picks up the phone.
In this situation, outsourcing B2B prospecting to professionals can be a worthwhile solution.
However, that's not the only potential bottleneck. You might also be consistently trying to book meetings without getting enough results. In other cases, you might feel like you've exhausted your entire addressable market.
Sometimes, the problem lies more in your expectations than in the actual results you're getting. In other situations, prospecting generates plenty of meetings, but none of them ever turn into customers.
Let's look at what's really causing these problems and how to fix them.
Why B2B Prospecting Fails
Unrealistic Expectations
In B2B cold calling, some target audiences are much easier to reach than others.
If you're looking to grow exclusively through large enterprise accounts, you shouldn't expect to generate 15 meetings per day.
Besides, if that were possible, you'd exhaust your entire market within a few weeks. There are only around 300 large corporations and 5,500 mid-sized companies (ETIs) in France.
Executives at large companies are harder to reach and much more difficult to convince to take a meeting.
So, first of all, you need to have realistic expectations. Even generating just one meeting per day when targeting large enterprise accounts is often an excellent result.
For example, when I worked as a full-time SDR at an adtech startup, targeting large corporations and mid-sized companies, my objective was to generate two qualified meetings per week.
Generating one meeting per day with this type of target audience often requires specialized B2B prospecting tools, an excellent prospecting technique, and a highly qualified prospect list.
Today, I generate between 1 and 4 qualified meetings per day with these types of targets, depending on the personas and markets I'm prospecting.
With other, more accessible target audiences, booking meetings is much easier.
Having realistic expectations is essential. Otherwise, you'll end up generating far more frustration than necessary.
See here for more information about what to expect from a successful cold calling campaign.
Not Enough Prospecting Volume
In some cases (although relatively rarely), salespeople know how to prospect effectively in their market, but simply don't do it often enough.
The reason is that they haven't blocked out dedicated time for B2B prospecting in their calendars.
Without dedicated prospecting slots, prospecting essentially doesn't exist. Administrative work, tasks related to existing customers, and everything else will inevitably take priority.
Prospecting is a discipline. You need to allocate at least 30–45 minutes per day to it if you want to generate tangible results every week.
No Prospecting Cycles
B2B prospecting involves recurring cycles during which you can revisit prospects you've already contacted.
This is a fundamental concept, yet I've already seen B2B startups that didn't even understand how it worked and ended up burning through their entire market by constantly contacting the same prospects.
Then they say: "We don't have any prospects left to contact..."
Actually, you have plenty. You've simply exhausted your lists instead of recycling them.
B2B prospecting isn't about harassing prospects until they eventually say yes to a meeting.
If someone tells you no, you should obviously stop contacting them for at least four months.
You shouldn't harass people in B2B, but you also shouldn't give up on them forever after the first rejection.
First, you need to distinguish between a standard rejection and an informed rejection.
If someone gives you a standard "no" without even understanding what you're offering, you can try again during a subsequent interaction (the following week or, at most, two weeks later).
After 4–6 months, you can recontact everyone who gave you an informed rejection (meaning they understood your offer) as well as those who never responded.
This will often allow you to generate almost as many new opportunities as you did during the initial campaign.
Their situation may have changed, their mindset may be different, or even new people may have joined their company.
With well-managed prospecting cycles and thorough multichannel outreach, a single salesperson can typically work on around 100–200 accounts over the course of a year, recycling them every 4–6 months.
See here for more information about how to prospect without harassing people.
Problems with the Closing Process
Sometimes, you manage to generate plenty of meetings, but you never manage to close any deals.
This can be extremely frustrating, and there are several possible explanations.
The first one is unrealistic expectations. If you think closing deals is easy, you're mistaken.
Here's a spoiler: having a 30-minute meeting with a prospect generated through outbound prospecting isn't necessarily any less emotionally demanding than making cold calls.
The idea that Account Executives have an easier job than SDRs isn't necessarily true.
I know this firsthand because I worked as a full-cycle salesperson for more than a year and a half, handling account management, prospecting, and closing.
Strangely enough, I actually preferred prospecting. That's why I decided to specialize in it.
The average B2B closing rate for leads generated through prospecting or paid ads is around 5–25% per meeting.
This means you'll often need at least 4 qualified meetings, and sometimes as many as 20, to generate a single customer.
Of course, this varies considerably depending on the product, the market, the average deal size, and other factors.
The good news is that closing rates can be significantly improved by implementing a few relatively straightforward B2B sales techniques.
Personally, I managed to double or even triple my closing rate by adopting these techniques when I was working as a full-cycle salesperson at an adtech startup.
In some cases, however, closing is simply impossible, regardless of how many meetings you generate.
This usually reveals a deeper problem with product-market fit, or a lack of qualification in the meetings being generated.
Poorly Qualified Meetings
Many salespeople complain about meeting quality:
"These meetings aren't qualified enough!"
But what actually makes a meeting qualified?
In my view, a meeting is qualified when the prospect:
Is a decision-maker at a company that fits your target audience.
Actually shows up for the meeting.
Understands what product or service you're offering before attending.
Is willing to spend 30 minutes exploring the subject with you.
Of course, not every meeting generated by cold callers meets these criteria.
Many meetings end up as no-shows, involve completely irrelevant personas, or involve prospects who fit your target audience but don't even really know what the meeting is about when they join.
In those cases, you're absolutely right: the meetings aren't qualified.
But this mainly reveals a problem with the cold calling technique being used.
Account Executives end up having to chase ghost meetings with prospects who were more or less pressured into accepting a meeting during a cold call, without even being properly informed about the product or service.
In that situation, you should change your provider or your cold calling approach.
Conclusion
B2B prospecting problems can originate from several different areas:
1. Your salespeople aren't prospecting, or simply aren't doing enough of it.
Outsource prospecting to professionals, or block out dedicated time slots and stick to them consistently over the long term (which can be extremely difficult to maintain).
2. Your expectations regarding meeting-booking rates or closing rates are unrealistic.
Understand how the process works to avoid unnecessary frustration.
3. Your closing rate is too low.
Improve your sales technique to increase your closing rate, or develop a better understanding of the process to avoid unrealistic expectations.
4. Your product doesn't have sufficient product-market fit.
Use feedback from the market to improve your product.
5. Your meetings genuinely aren't qualified.
Audit the quality of your meetings. If they're genuinely unqualified, change your provider or your cold calling technique.
If you're confident in your ability to close deals but want to generate more qualified meetings, you can send me an email below (louis@outbound-machine.com)