Use Prospecting Center to Find Promising Leads
Learning Objectives
After completing this unit, you’ll be able to:
- Explain the significance of effective prospecting in driving sales success.
- Identify key capabilities of Prospecting Center.
- Outline the steps for setting up Prospecting Center.
Sales stats can be hard to hear. But here’s the truth: 67% of sales reps don’t expect to hit their quota this year, and a whopping 84% missed it last year! What’s going on? Well, one big factor is that sellers are spending 70% of their time on non–selling tasks, and that number hasn’t budged. A lot of this time gets eaten up by prospecting, which, while important, often leaves reps chasing leads that never quite convert. It's like fishing with a net full of holes!
Take Jose Figueroa, for example, a sales manager at Cloud Kicks, a company that makes stylish and comfortable custom sneakers, designed and personalized for their customers. Jose’s dealing with the same situation as many others. His team is working hard but focusing on accounts that aren't exactly leading to big wins. So Jose decides it’s time to ask for help and sets up a meeting with Linda Rosenberg, the Salesforce admin. Linda is a true Salesforce fan, always tweaking things, pushing boundaries, and loving a fun technical challenge to solve. Jose’s hoping Linda can help him find a solution to prioritize the right leads, so his reps can close more deals and finally start crushing those quotas.
A Brewing Solution for Sales Challenges
Jose and Linda sit across from each other in a lively coffee shop. Jose looks visibly frustrated as he outlines his sales challenges.
- Sellers are bogged down with non–selling tasks, which pulls them away from focusing on actual sales.
- Accounts aren’t closing as expected, leaving his team struggling to meet their targets.
- Prospecting takes too long, making it hard to find and connect with new leads efficiently.
Linda listens carefully, her expression thoughtful as she reviews her notes. After a moment of quiet consideration, she suggests that Sales Cloud Prospecting Center might be exactly what’s needed for the situation at hand.
Transform Your Sales with Prospecting Center
Let’s be honest: Most sellers aren’t thrilled about scouring the web for new leads, spending equal time on every single one, and watching their hard work fizzle out with an unclosed lead. The real thrill of the job lies in building solid relationships, solving problems, and racking up a stellar sales record. Chasing leads aimlessly, without any strategy or purpose, is the complete opposite of that. This is a universal issue that screams for a smarter way to improve the sales process, giving sellers more control over where and how they invest their time and energy.
Enter Prospecting Center—powered by trusted Data Cloud and AI—it does the heavy lifting for you. It analyzes both your CRM and external data to identify the most promising opportunities. Instead of spending time and energy across a broad list of leads, you can now focus on the ones most likely to convert.
That seems promising. But, the question is how? It starts with enabling Data Cloud and Sales Engagement—two simple steps your admin can handle.
Once Data Cloud is integrated with Sales Cloud, it opens the door to a wealth of external data, far beyond the accounts, contacts, and leads you’re already tracking. Imagine enriching your Salesforce data with insights like demographic information, past purchase behavior, and even recent interactions with key websites.
All of this data gets pulled into a single view through identity resolution, giving you a complete 360-degree profile of your leads. From there, you can create marketing segments that fit perfectly with your sales strategy. While it might sound like a lot, Data Cloud makes it all easy to manage, ensuring that everything is set up to streamline your sales efforts and give you a clear path to prioritizing high-potential customers.
All of this sounds great to Jose. After all, Prospecting Center just saved his team from hours of lead-hunting. They now have a treasure trove of new leads, no more running around the internet without a clear direction or plan. But, Jose soon realizes, that only solves part of his problem.
Now he’s staring at a list of leads longer than his grocery list. How does he make sure his team is focusing on the right ones? He turns to Linda, scratching his head, and asks, “Well, what now?” Linda, of course, is excited to demonstrate the magic filter that Prospecting Center brings to the table.
Prioritize with Precision Using Account Scoring
Account Scoring is your secret weapon for identifying your next best customer. It takes three key elements—Engagement, Fit, and Intent—and blends them into one overall Account Score. Here’s how it breaks down.
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Engagement Score: This score shows how actively businesses interact with your sales team. For example, reaching out for custom designs, asking questions, or following up on sneaker samples suggests a higher engagement score and a more interested customer. In Prospecting Center, you can create rules to determine what counts toward their Engagement Score.
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Fit Score: This is all about how well an account matches the profile of your ideal customer. For Jose, a higher Fit score would reflect accounts that frequently order in bulk or belong to industries he targets, like sports teams or promotional companies. You can set up rules in Prospecting Center to fine-tune what makes an account a “perfect fit.”
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Intent Score: Think of this as a sneak peek into buyer behavior. It’s based on actions businesses are taking, both online and offline, that indicate they’re ready to buy. If they’re frequently visiting your website or engaging with your marketing content, that’s a strong signal. By default, Intent scoring is turned off, but you can easily enable it in Prospecting Center to track those telltale buying signals.
By combining these scores, Jose clearly identifies which accounts are worth his time, allowing him to concentrate on the businesses that matter most for their custom sneaker creations. Now Jose can adjust the account scores based on how well the leads match the existing customers, or prioritize them based on their interest toward custom sneakers. For Jose, the ability to customize the overall score based on their business's specific needs is particularly exciting.
Conclusion
As his meeting with Linda comes to an end, Jose feels energized by the insights into Prospecting Center and its capabilities. The potential to enhance efficiency and prioritize leads was exactly what he needed for his custom sneaker business. He decides to move forward with enabling Prospecting Center for his team with Linda’s help and looks forward to exploring its features firsthand.