We’ll never get anything out of our pipeline if we don’t put anything into it. More importantly, the quality of what we put into it is going to determine the quality we get out of it.
Look at how you prospect and be very serious about asking yourself if what you have is a process or just some activity you go through. The percentage of salespeople that has a solid prospecting process is small. I’ve never seen a formal study on this issue, but from my own experience in working with salespeople, I would put it at less than 10 percent.
The reasons are both simple and complex as to why so few have solid plan they can believe in and execute routinely.
Below are some questions you need to ask yourself about how you prospect:
Where does prospecting fall in my daily list of priorities?
How many highly-qualified prospects am I working with at any one time?
Is the length of time it takes for me to close a prospect decreasing over time?
What is the percentage of deals I have to discount to get the prospect to buy?
What is my lifetime value of a new customer?
What is the most effective part of my prospecting process and what part am I currently working on to improve?
Do I see prospecting as an activity or a lifestyle?
Check out this 14-second video regarding prospecting being an activity vs. it being a lifestyle:
Unless you have some element of superhuman control over your mind, making the flip to viewing prospecting as a lifestyle takes time. But you must take the first step.
First thing you can do is block your time to give you dedicated windows of time on a regular basis to prospect. This time needs to be sacred prospecting time. It’s not time you skip over and it’s not time you allow other things to encroach on. You must focus the time 100% on only prospecting.
You know this issue of prospecting is my focus. It’s why I wrote the book, “High-Profit Prospecting,” and it’s why I need you to join me for a FREE special webinar, July 19:
Rebuilding Your Prospecting Process
Thursday, July 19
11 am Central Time
REGISTER TODAY!
And don’t forget that a coach can help you excel in your sales career! Invest in yourself by checking out my coaching program today!
Copyright 2018, Mark Hunter “The Sales Hunter.” Sales Motivation Blog. Mark Hunter is the author of High-Profit Prospecting: Powerful Strategies to Find the Best Leads and Drive Breakthrough Sales Results
2 Responses
Many thanks Mark for a great post as usual and always appreciated. — Barry.
I love your motivational and thoughtful posts Mark. I love prospecting too! Thanks.