How can I become an exceptional prospector?

Have you heard yourself saying any of the following?

• “My most important appointment is prospecting and I do it first up every day.”
• “I qualify all leads I generate and have an approach to handle those that aren’t ready yet.”
• “People appreciate a professional sales approach and are able to make an informed decision to say ‘yes’ or ‘no’ because I clearly explain, up front, my reason for contacting them using a customer centred approach.  They need only say ‘no’ if they’re not interested.”
• “I have a list of categorised prospects or influencers and a set approach for each category.”

Is this what you say, and how you feel and act about prospecting?

These four points about an exceptional prospector support our findings from over 40 years of international empirical research into prospecting behaviours.

Over the past 14 years, my team has conducted thousands of psychological assessments and interviews with both managers and salespeople about their prospecting and sales behaviours.

Our research has consistently revealed that salespeople often experience their greatest difficulties, dissatisfaction, and anxiety at the prospecting stage of the sales cycle.  Meanwhile, sales managers repeatedly express their frustration that they cannot find salespeople who are competent, confident, and motivated to prospect for new business.

Prospecting requires sales people to establish contact with people who might buy your products or services. Whether it is phone, face-to-face or group prospecting, inbound or outbound, nothing gets sold until you get in front of and/or talk to potential buyers. 

Definition of prospecting

Prospecting is looking for, qualifying, and pursuing potential sales opportunities with new and existing customers, and appropriately developing viable prospects into profitable sales.

40 years of International Empirical Research in Prospecting
(Research reference: Behavioral Sciences Research Press)

The research showed that the main predictor for success in sales is the amount of contact initiated with prospective buyers on a consistent basis!  

Across industries, the sales people who sell the most are those who are most willing to get out and get in front of prospective buyers on a consistent daily basis. They sell more because, regardless of their talent, experience or knowledge, they always have new people to sell to.  They are visible and they manage their visibility so that customers know who they are and what they can do.

The hesitation to initiate contact with prospective buyers on a consistent daily basis is more responsible for the failure of competent, motivated, capable, revenue generating sales people than any other single factor. Nothing else even comes close.

Despite content or quality, no training can earn back what it costs until and unless sales people initiate contact in sufficient numbers with new and existing clients.

It is a reality that in order to achieve and exceed sales targets through attracting new business, a significant part of the process is going to come down to how well a sales person is able to apply themselves to the prospecting process.

So prospecting comes first!

Prospecting is not the only part of selling, or even the most important, however if you want to grow your business it must come first.  Unless a sales person will consistently prospect for new business, what difference does it make if they are empathetic or knows the product?

The good news

While most sales people, by far, experience their greatest difficulties, dissatisfaction, and anxiety at the prospecting stage of the sales cycle, the good news is that many of their issues can be overcome and usually boil down to two key areas:

• Lack of training in how to prospect effectively – most people are thrown in the deep end and not given adequate training in clear processes and tools to show them how to prospect effectively.
• Misconstrued beliefs and attitudes around prospecting – leading to people generating fear-based thoughts, and responses towards prospecting. In other words they avoid prospecting because they are scared of it.  These attitudes and subsequent behavioural responses are entirely learnt and can be easily unlearnt with the right support.

If you are at all concerned about your prospecting effectiveness, don’t worry – you can address your concerns by using the right approach:

• If you don’t know how to prospect but are not scared to have a go, then get skills training specifically covering a structured prospecting process and techniques.
• If you are afraid to prospect whether you are trained in a prospecting process and techniques or not, then you would benefit from gaining insight into your beliefs and attitudes around your hesitation to prospect.  (This can be achieved with purpose-built assessments and qualified feedback.)

If you want to read more about effective prospecting go to Peak performance in prospecting

Sue Barrett is founder and managing director of BARRETT, a boutique consultancy firm. Sue is an experienced consultant, public speaker, coach and facilitator. Sue and her team are best known for their work in creating high performing people and teams. Key to their success is working with the whole person and integrating emotional intelligence, skill, knowledge, behaviour, process and strategy via effective training and coaching programs. Click here to find out more

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