Yes, sales prospecting can be made simple in 2 easy steps.
You’re probably thinking,”On what grounds can he dare make a statement this bold?”
Well, I’ve been around enough salespeople and I know from my own experience that it really does come down to 2 easy steps.
Are you ready for them?
First step is to schedule time on a regular basis to prospect.
Second step is to follow-up on those people you initially prospect.
It’s that simple, but this is without a doubt the number one problem most salespeople have when it comes to prospecting.
The majority of salespeople have numerous activities for which they are responsible, and finding and developing new customers is just one of those activities. When it comes to prospecting, the majority of salespeople would rather be doing almost anything else but prospecting.
What this means is they will spend time doing other activities they feel are important to their job — to the point that they don’t have time to prospect for new customers. They maybe even rationalize their lack of time.
Obviously, this problem of not having enough time to prospect then carries over to the second easy step of following up. Following up is even more important than merely making the first call.
Here’s why: Very few deals are closed on the first call. I don’t need to show you the multitude of studies that show the majority of sales are closed after the 4, 5, and 6th call. And yes, you know where I’m going the vast majority of salespeople give up after just 1 or 2 sales calls.
If you look at the numbers I shared in the preceding paragraph, you can see the easiest way for a salesperson to close more sales is by simply following up on the prospects they’ve begun calling upon.
There you have it: my perspective on the easiest two steps to increase the results you get from sales prospecting.
Your homework is to now do two things.
First, alter your schedule to ensure you have 100% commitment to devote to sales prospecting on either a daily or weekly basis. This means actually contacting prospects, not merely doing research on who to contact. Second, set your plan to where you can do the repetitive follow-up you need to do to actually close the sale.
Click on the below image for a FREE webinar on prospecting:
Copyright 2012, Mark Hunter “The Sales Hunter.” Sales Motivation Blog.
