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Qualifying Sales Prospects

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You need to separate the suspects from the prospects to make the best use of your time and resources.

By Denise L. Rondini, Executive Editor

drondini@randallreilly.com

No matter how successful you are at truck sales, your continued success depends in part on finding potential new customers. Finding qualified prospects is the key, although it can be time consuming. However, failure to qualify leads will result in frustration, and more importantly, will not result in sales.

There are a number of ways to find potential customers, including customer referrals, your current customers’ competitors, direct marketing, advertising, etc.

While you will want to begin with a comprehensive list, remember the goal is not to have lots of sales “suspects,” but rather to find genuine buying prospects who you then can qualify.

A qualified prospect is one who actually needs your product and needs it in the not-too- distant future. To facilitate the sales process, make sure you can ...

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Economic Indicators

Industrial production increased 1.1% in April, and the Federal Reserve revised March and February figures — previously estimated as both unchanged — as down 0.6% and up 0.4%, respectively.

Housing starts were up 2.6% in April over March and 29.9% over April 2011. Permits authorized for future residential construction fell 7% from March but were up 23.7% above April 2011.

The average retail price of a gallon of on-highway diesel dropped 5.3 cents to $4.004 a gallon during the week ended May 14. The average price was down 5.7 cents from the same week last year.

U.S. freight railroads’ carloads were down 5.2% for the week ended May 12 compared to the same week last year. Intermodal traffic was up 3.1%.

First-time claims for unemployment insurance were unchanged at 370,000 claims on a seasonally adjusted basis during the week ended May 12. The four-week moving average was 377,000, a decrease of 4,750 from the previous week’s revised average.

More on these and other economic indicators is available by subscription at www.truckgauge.com.