No area in selling is more rife with conflict, advice, and data than prospecting. 

Do automated form emails work? Is cold calling dead? Do buyers accept cold meetings? How many touches does it take to connect? How can you get through to the C-suite?

Indeed, what do sellers who get the best prospecting results do differently?

With our Top Performance in Sales Prospecting research, the team at the RAIN Group Center for Sales Research has uncovered what works and what doesn’t in sales prospecting—according to both buyers and sellers. We sought to find out how sellers break through and connect with buyers, what works to generate meetings, what influences overall purchase decisions, and where buyer and seller views on prospecting overlap.

The study included 488 buyers representing $4.2 billion in purchases across 25 industries, and 489 sellers who outbound prospect. We analyzed results across Top Performers—those with the best prospecting results—industry, company value-focus, buyer title, company size, prospecting maturity and success, brand cachet, and geography. 

Never before has prospecting research been done to this scale. The findings have been integrated into our RAIN Sales Prospecting training and published for our clients and Center for Sales Research Panelists.

In our Top Performance in Sales Prospecting report, we share what works in sales prospecting according to buyers and sellers. The report includes:

• The definition of top performance and key results
• A breakdown of the key areas that set top-performing prospectors apart
• Prospecting tactics from a seller's perspective
• Statistics on the number of outreach attempts required to connect with a buyer
• Factors that influence if a buyer connects with a seller

Download the report. >>