Sales Prospecting Perspectives

Teleprospecting Tips For Uncovering Leads In The WLAN Industry

  

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I’ve been lucky enough to have been managing wireless networking projects here at AG since 2005. Early on it seemed that every other person we reached out had an active project to either install WLAN in their corporate offices or had a plan to upgrade throughout their entire campus. At the time we had a couple of things working in our favor. First of all the economic climate was simply in a better place than it is today, so it seemed that budget generally tended to be available or could have been easily allocated. Secondly, wireless was still somewhat of a fresh concept at the time and it seemed that every employee or student had the expectation that it should be available in the workplace and on campus.

Needless to say, the marketplace has evolved quite a bit over the last 7 years. Though the demand is still very much out there, we’re finding that leads are tougher to come by. Our problem nowadays is that mostly everyone we speak to has at least some wireless networking in place and upgrades are less likely due to limited budgets.  As a result our prospecting efforts have required a bit more creativity than was necessary when we first started dialing back in ‘05.

Here are a few tips that have been working for us these days trying to uncover those elusive opportunities in the wireless networking world.

1. Leverage Forums: There are many wireless networking forums out there you can register for at no cost. They can give you some great insight as to what technology schools/organizations are using, as well as the pain they may be experiencing. It seems they really want to know what their neighbors are up to so “information sharing” tends not to be an issue. Bottom line is they are not afraid to talk.
2. Target Network Administrators: We’ll call high, but generally these tend to be the best titles that we end up speaking with. They’re knowledgeable and it seems they’re tasked with always being abreast of the latest and greatest technology. Also, they tend to be the biggest contributors to the forums mentioned above so as a result they love to talk about what they have going on.
3. Try to find new builds: If there is new construction going on, generally the expectation is WLAN will be involved at some point. I’d suggest taking a look at a list company by the name of Reedata.com – We’ve found them useful in getting us in front of projects we would otherwise not know about.
4. School websites tend to post their employee directory: Since it’s a vertical where technology refresh is continuous, you can’t beat it when everyone you’re targeting is posted right up on their directory with full contact info. 
5. Follow up regularly: Things seem to be constantly changing in WLAN land. You may have spoken to someone 3 months ago who said they no plans to evaluate within the next year, you call them 12 months later and they say they upgraded 3 months ago. Seems to be par for the course. Point is, follow up earlier than they tell you to. Call me in 12 months means call me in 6. Call me in 6 months means call me in 3 months.

So what are you doing now that sales leads are harder to come by?

It’s time to get creative. Now that WLAN projects aren’t as prevalent anymore, give the tips mentioned above a try. It should at least help to maintain the volume of opportunities we have become accustomed to seeing in past years.