Thinking about a prospect is not the same as contacting a prospect, so it’s about time we quite confusing the two.
Far too many salespeople spend all of their prospecting time working on their prospecting list, gathering information, and thinking about how they’ll prospect and what they want to say.
Nothing wrong with that on the surface, but the problem is they never get around to actually contacting the customer.
The issue is the amount of time that is spent thinking about sales prospecting in relationship to the amount of time actually spent prospecting.
I’ve heard from far too many sales managers and salespeople who say their prospecting pipeline is empty. When I probe them as to why, the number one issue is because they haven’t spent enough time engaging with prospects. The sad part is it’s because what little time they devote to prospecting is spent thinking about prospecting.
Why should anyone expect results if all they do is think about reaching out to customers? It’s as if we believe technology has reached such an advanced state that all we have to do is think about something and it happens.
Just as we can’t expect results from just thinking about a prospect, neither should we expect results from a customer thinking about us.
It’s just not going to happen.
The way around this problem is simple.
Pick up the phone and call. Quit making excuses and start making it happen.
Not having a full prospecting pipeline is simply an excuse. Fact is for many salespeople they spend all of their time planning to prospect as a way of getting themselves to believe they are prospecting. In reality, they’re doing nothing more than making excuses to compensate for their fear.
Do you see yourself in that scenario? Be humble and admit it.
There are a lot more of you out there than will ever admit. The cure? Stop thinking about your prospects and pick up the phone and start calling.
Copyright 2013, Mark Hunter “The Sales Hunter.” Sales Motivation Blog.
