Sales Prospecting:

What is a Prospect?

A Prospect, or Sales Lead, is the identification of a person or entity that has the interest and authority to purchase a product or service. This step represents the first stage of a sales process. The lead may have a corporation or business associated (a B2B lead) with the person(s). Sales leads are generic leads - i.e. a person signs up for a type of offer, instead of a particular company or brand. Sales leads come from either lead generation companies processes such as trade fair|trade shows, direct marketing, advertising, Internet marketing, spam, gimmicks, or from sales person prospecting activities such as cold calling. For a sales lead to qualify as a sales prospect, or equivalently to move a lead from the process step sales lead to the process sales prospect, qualification must be performed and evaluated. Typically this involves identifying by direct interrogation the lead's product applicability, availability of funding and time frame for purchase. This is also the entry point of a sales tunnel, sales funnel or sales pipeline.