Hopefully, by this point you’ve identified the prospects who are genuinely interested in what you offer and have been nurturing them according to where they are in their buying journey. Now it’s time to look for the opportunities.

This doesn’t mean trying to sell to everyone in your database. It’s about recognising when a prospect has moved from simply being interested to showing genuine signs that they are ready to buy, and making sure you act while that opportunity is there.

Seeing the Wood for the Trees

This is where some businesses can fall at the final hurdle. Getting the timing right is important, because approaching someone too early can undo some of the work you’ve put into building the relationship. At the same time, waiting too long can mean the prospect loses interest or chooses to buy from someone else.

The difficulty is that it isn’t always obvious when someone is ready.

A prospect might suddenly start opening your emails, return to your website several times, ask more specific questions or get in touch to find out about pricing. Each of these actions on its own might not mean much, but when you start looking at them together, they can give you a much clearer picture of where that person is in their buying journey.

A business that treats every lead in exactly the same way can end up spending far too much time chasing people who aren’t ready to buy, while missing the people who are.

Your database might contain hundreds or even thousands of contacts, but only a small percentage may be actively considering a purchase at any given time. The opportunity is knowing which ones deserve your attention now.

The Answer Is Already There

One of the best ways to identify these opportunities is through prospect scoring.

By giving your prospects scores based on their interactions and behaviour, you can start to separate cool, warm and hot prospects. Someone who has shown a little interest might remain at the lower end of the scale, while someone who is regularly engaging with your content, asking questions or taking actions that indicate buying intent can move towards the higher end.

You can then decide what each level means for your business. Your hot prospects might be ready for a direct sales conversation, while your warm prospects can continue to be nurtured until they show stronger signs of intent.

The important thing is to base your scoring on what actually happens in your business rather than simply guessing.

Think about your previous customers. What were they doing before they became customers? What questions were they asking? What were they interested in? Did they visit certain pages on your website or respond to particular emails? Was there a point where their behaviour changed and you realised they were ready to have a sales conversation?

These patterns can help you recognise similar opportunities in the future.

If you don’t have enough historical information to do this yet, that’s okay. Your CRM and sales pipeline will help you build that knowledge over time. The more prospects you work with and the more information you record, the easier it becomes to recognise the signs that someone is moving closer to a purchase.

Make Your Software Work for You

Your CRM needs to be able to support this process. Having all your information in one place is useful, but being able to act on that information is even more valuable.

With popcorn, you can use prospect scoring to help identify which contacts are showing the strongest signs of interest. As their interactions change, their score can change too, helping you see when someone is becoming a more valuable sales opportunity.

You can also use your CRM to organise what happens next. For example, a prospect reaching a particular score could prompt a follow-up, move them into a different stage of your sales pipeline or simply notify you that it’s time to take a closer look.

The important thing is that your system should grow with your business. The way you identify a hot prospect today might change as you gain more customers and learn more about your sales process, so you need to be able to adjust your approach rather than being stuck with the same rules forever.

Respond Accordingly

Once you’ve identified a prospect who looks ready to buy, you need to decide what you’re going to do with that opportunity.

The right approach will depend on your business and how your customers normally buy. For some businesses, the next step might be a phone call. For others, it could be a demonstration, a meeting, a quote or simply sending the information they have asked for.

The important thing is that your response matches the level of interest they’ve shown.

If someone has spent time asking questions and researching your service, a personal conversation might be exactly what they need. If someone has simply downloaded a guide, immediately calling them to make a sale might be too much.

This is where all the information you’ve gathered through the previous stages becomes useful. You know what they’ve been interested in, how they’ve interacted with you and where they are in your sales process. Use that information to decide what the right next step should be.

And don’t be afraid to experiment. You won’t always get it right the first time. If a particular approach works well, keep using it. If it doesn’t, look at what happened and try something different next time.

Remember that every prospect is an individual. What works for one person might not work for another, and that’s exactly why the PRM approach focuses on the relationship rather than treating every lead as the same.

The opportunity is there when the prospect is ready. Your job is to recognise it and respond at the right time.

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