Prospecting

The step in the selling process in which the salesperson identifies qualified potential customers. A sales person should be aware that a good prospect generally displays more interest in the product than a poor prospect. The traditional ways of prospecting include: (1) cold calling (2) telemarketing (cold calling on the telephone) (3) direct mail (4) referrals (5) advertising. The first step with each of these approaches is to decide what kind of suspects to concentrate on.