The Skill Of Selling - Part 3

Sorting and filtering potential customers is about finding the right types of people who would be interested in your product or service.  We do this by building a demographic profile for our customer and seeking people that fit the profile.  You can do this through networking or through advertising.  When you network you can find the right people for your product by asking "Do you know anybody who..." type questions, rather than selling to everyone you talk to.  In advertisements, you can find your demographic by advertising in the right places and asking for the right kind of response in the ad.

Sorting and filtering can involve other types of qualifying actions also.  For instance, to make sure your prospect can afford your product you might charge for information or admission into the sales presentation.  The places where you advertise might also qualify your prospect in some way.  For instance, if you advertise in a magazine, you know that the prospect probably bought the magazine.  If you advertise in a free newspaper, you may find that your prospects are less price qualified.

Check out the following resources for more information:

• Demographic Profile - Wikipedia
• Lead Generation - Wikipedia
• Building Your Marketing Campaigns Around Your Demographic Profile
• Demographics - Answers.com
• Qualifying Prospects: Seven Vital Questions To Ask

Also see:

• About Demographics
• Marketing 101 For Small Business
• Small Business Marketing Workshop - How To Market Without A Budget