No matter how full your pipeline is, you should never stop prospecting.

I can’t say enough about this both as a tool to keep your business growing and as a way to keep your sales motivation and sales confidence high. I find too many times salespeople will start to cower on price when they look at their sales pipeline and see it with big leaks. Keeping your pipeline full is as much about being able to bring in new business long-term as it is about securing more sales immediately.

One approach overlooked by people in terms of keeping their pipeline full is to have a social media marketing strategy. This does not mean you spend hours and hours on Facebook, Linkedin, Myspace, Twitter, etc. Spending too much time on these sites can seriously hurt your business. What I mean is use social media sites as a way of having another way to stay in touch with people with whom you normally do not have many opportunities to connect. You do this by sending them occasional quick direct messages and by using the social media sites to let people know what you’re doing.

I realize social media is a very slippery slope to use as a sales development tool. You do need to have proper protocol and be conscientious of building relationship, not simply seeking sales. What I do want you to take away from this posting is there are numerous ways to prospect and numerous ways to build your pipeline. Social media is one tool of many you can use in the process. It’s important to have a solid sales growth strategy to help you deal with customers with confidence and not cower at the last moment on price or something else. The more you continually build your pipeline, the less tendency you have to think the sale you might lose will be the last you’ll ever get.