Sales Mindset, Sales Motivation, Sales Process, Sales Prospecting

How to Fill the Prospecting Calendar

December 16, 2020
By Mark Hunter

It’s time for you to fill your prospecting calendar. How full is yours? You know, I find it amazing that the vast majority of salespeople don’t even have a full prospecting calendar. They think it’s full, but it’s not. It’s not even close to being at capacity.

Here are 10 things you can do right now to help fill your prospecting calendar, especially as we’re quickly approaching the first quarter of 2021.

1. Target your ICP

If you’ve read or heard me at all, you know that I talk about your ICP a lot. It’s one of the big reasons why I wrote the books, High-Profit Prospecting and A Mind for Sales. I want you to focus specifically on your ICP (ideal customer profile). Target this “person”. That is number one.

2. Strong CTA

You must have a strong CTA, so subscribe to my videos. Subscribe to my YouTube channel. I put a new video out every week. You’re probably asking what is “CTA”. It’s your call-to-action, and it must be clear. With every prospecting message that you send, you’re putting a message out there. Many salespeople don’t really have a clear CTA. If you want the prospect / customer to see that you’re trying to sell something, you have to upfront about it.

Don’t hide behind the bushes. Have a clear call-to-action that moves them to the next step, which might just be a phone call. Or, the next step might be a discovery meeting, trial, getting them to open up and share information with you, whatever it is. Whatever you do, just make sure you have a clearly articulated CTA that takes them to the next step.

3. Clear Expectations

For both you and your customer, the expectations must be clear. What do I mean by clear? I’m referring to the customer actually knowing the process that you’re taking. A good question that I like to ask the prospect is: how do you normally make decisions like “x”? This helps me try to understand them better so I can have clearer expectations of how they’re going to make a decision. Expectations must be explicitly laid out.

Think about what you’re trying to do. What are you trying to help the prospect / customer with? Clear expectations cut both ways, and even more so now because of all the noise out there. When expectations are clearly stated from both parties, the customer is better able to understand who you are and what you stand for.

This is one of the reasons why I talk a lot about authenticity and transparency. Both are crucial right now when it comes to sales. I’ll come back and talk about this in another video. Remember to subscribe to my channel so you don’t miss it!

4. Multi-channel

This means that you just have to use every medium out there. For instance, you want to use video, text messaging, email, social media, and the list goes on and on. In our high-tech world today, there are a variety of channels available to us. However, keep in mind that not every medium works for every industry. You just have to be willing to push the envelope because what you think is comfortable to you may not feel comfortable to the other person.

For example, you may prefer to communicate via email. Your customer, on the other hand, may prefer WhatsApp. I had this happen with a customer just the other day actually. They said they prefer WhatsApp because they are in a different country, so I had to adjust to meet their preferences and needs.

You have to be able to adopt the preferred communication method of your prospect, so you have to be willing to use multiple channels of communication.

5. Be Their Solution

Right now, it’s so noisy out there. There are so many things happening in our world. You may think or feel like you can’t measure if you can’t be a part of your customers top one, two, or three problems. I get that, and that’s ok. You just have to clearly state how you meet their top three priorities. Your primary goal is to be seen as a subject matter expert.

Again, this is why I brought up authenticity and transparency earlier. You have to create a level of trust and confidence that goes beyond anything anyone has ever seen in the past.

6. Rinse and Repeat

If you’ve been around me for any amount of time, you know that I love to talk about the three simple words, “rinse and repeat” on every shampoo bottle. Yes, you have to keep coming back, although it doesn’t necessarily mean you should come back with the same message.

Every message must bring different value, a different message. You have to do this, because it’s how the prospect / customers sees you as standing apart from everyone else. It marks you as different. Don’t think for a moment about sitting there and being shady with them. No, don’t do that. Because you know what? That brings me to my next point…

7. Your Reputation Matters

This is a big one and a primary thing I call out on social media. Social media helps you establish your reputation. It helps you sell, because nobody can talk to anybody without first Googling and seeing what it has to say about that person.

So, what does Google say about this person? What does Google say about you? Chances are it’ll take you to LinkedIn if you’re in a B2B environment. So, what does LinkedIn say about you? If you’re in a B2C environment, it might take you to Facebook. So, what does Facebook say about you?

You have to ask yourself this question: would customers want to do business with me if they went out and saw what the Internet has to say about me?

8. Leverage Existing Contacts

Let me tell you that we can never do enough with our existing contacts. We just can’t. These contacts take on a number of different things besides just existing contacts. They also take on our customers, current customers, their past customers, or their leads that never materialized.

Existing contacts might be customers that left you or never chose to do business with you, but these are people that understand who you are. These are people with which your reputation has already arrived. So why would you not leverage existing contacts? Don’t feel like you need to spend all your time chasing new prospects when you already have a whole list that you haven’t focused in on.

9. Referrals

Oh, wow. The is hands down one of the easiest ways to fill a calendar, so reach out and ask your customers for them. You must be deliberate, though. Don’t make the mistake of thinking that you didn’t do a good job so you can’t ask them. How do you know that until you ask them? You don’t know what your existing customers will say until you talk to them. Ask them who else would benefit from what you’ve done for them.

Reach out to people now and remember that referrals cut both ways. You have to be sure that you’re giving referrals, too. The more referrals you give, the better. No, it’s not necessarily like that but it is amazing what happens when you get into the habit of giving referrals. Often, you’ll end up receiving more referrals.

10. Make the calls!

There’s no way you can fill your prospecting calendar by just saying, “well, here’s my plan. Now I’ll sit back and wait for it to happen.” No way! You have to pick up the phone and make the calls. You have to be deliberate. You have to be intentional. You have to stay focused. You have to schedule the time and follow through with it. When you do, it’s amazing what good things happen.

There you go! Now you have ten action items to help you fill your prospecting calendar as we soon wrap up 2020 and head into the first quarter of 2021. Check out my website, check out my YouTube channel. I want you to take advantage of everything I have for you, including my books.