How to approach your Prospecting Day
How to Approach Your Prospecting Day John Driscoll WWW.SALESWARRIORS.COM.AU
Š Sales Warriors International [WWW.SALESWARRIORS.COM.AU]
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How to approach your Prospecting Day
How to Approach Your Day A sales person in the top 2% in their field will prospect on a regular basis, regardless of how much business they have on the go. Regular prospecting evens out your peaks and troughs in your sales performance. No sales person is ever above prospecting. No sales person ever graduates from prospecting. Every ‘No’ takes you closer to a ‘Yes’. Work out your prospecting ratio (how many calls to an appointment). Have a single purpose for each call. Measure your success rate against this single purpose. i learnt early in my sales career that the first prospecting call is the start of a new business relationship. So I choose not to delegate my prospecting to a third party such as a telemarketing service. I’ve been on sales calls that a telemarketer has set up for me, and ouch! I’d rather start the dialogue with a person from scratch. I soon realised that warm leads, or appointments generated for me, requires a prospecting call from scratch from me anyway, just in case the appointment was bogus. There are some really good telemarketers out there but unfortunately they’re few and far between. Telemarketers are usually measured against how many appointments they generate, not how many of them are any good. The golden rule of confirming appointments should always prevail nevertheless. Start your day with calling your appointments and confirming the time and place with the person (or their PA).
The process Let’s walk through the morning routine of two people. One person we’ll call Vanessa, the other Sam. They both work in an open plan office and are part of a large sales team. It’s 8.30 am and they both show up to the office at the same time. Sam and Vanessa get their morning coffee and sit down at their desks. They have both set aside time in their diaries to prospect for three hours in the morning. Let’s see how their individual days go. Time
Sam’s morning
8.30 am
Sam does a little paperwork, then soon gets distracted by the office chatter. He hears his mates talking and walks over to join the conversation. He gets his coffee and says good morning to his team mates around the office. Sam returns to his desk, now fully briefed on his mates’ weekend adventures.
9.15 am
He decides it’s time to prospect. Instead of knuckling down to the task at hand, he looks for diversions. He opens his email and starts reading non-time critical ‘internal spam’.
10.00 am
Sam realises his coffee is empty and heads for the kitchen. He returns to his desk and decides to ring someone. Disorganised, he tries to decide who he should call. He decides on a random name on his suspect list; he gives them a call. No new opportunities were identified.
10.30 am
He’s showing real enthusiasm now. Unfortunately, though, he was only good out the gate, and he stopped soon after. Morning tea downstairs in the coffee shop is calling!
11.15 am
Sam returns. He gets focused and starts to make a few calls. He found his first organisation that is entering a buying cycle. Excited, he jumps straight into solution mode and starts selling his company’s abilities. In spite of his rookie-like behaviour, he secures an appointment. First appointment made and he feels like he’s king for a day!
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How to approach your Prospecting Day
12 noon
Sam takes stock of half a day’s work. One new opportunity to work on (and he’ll probably brag about it to his boss). The opportunity value is worth $120,000. This is added to his sales funnel. He has one new egg in his basket.
In contrast, let’s look at a morning of constructive prospecting. Time
Vanessa’s morning
8.30 am
Vanessa gets a coffee and says good morning to her team mates. Vanessa does a little paperwork, which includes her daily to-do checklist refreshed for the day, a habit she does every morning. Vanessa opens her email to look for any emergencies that she may need to deal with. No emergencies found. She minimises her email on her desktop to avoid visual distractions.
8.40 am
Once Vanessa’s initial morning paperwork is finished, she puts all of it aside and clears her desk. With both her suspect list and her Internet Explorer open, Vanessa is ready to prospect. Vanessa has blocked out a section of three hours in her diary for prospecting, and people have come to know that this is one appointment that she holds firm on. Vanessa selects her first target account from her suspect list and searches for the organisation on the internet. The phone directory and their corporate website are all the information she needs. She reads about five minutes worth of information on the suspect company.
9.00 am
She picks up the phone and gives them a call. She makes contact with a person that is in the right role and ‘positions’ and ‘paces’ the conversation nicely. The phone call takes about three minutes. No luck this time, but asked if it was OK to call back in three months. Vanessa then enters all of the details into her CRM (Customer Relationship Management database) with a reminder to follow up with another phone call in three months time, as agreed with the suspect account. She then moves onto her next selected suspect account. Vanessa keeps the momentum throughout the morning.
10.30 am
Vanessa takes a break. She has called nine companies. Two of the organisations contacted are in or entering a buying cycle.
10.45 am
Vanessa returns to her prospecting. Falling into her regimented routine quickly, she makes contact with six more suspect accounts. From the organisations contacted, she has established that there are two more buying cycles that she can contribute to. With all of the data recorded in her CRM, and the additional items placed onto her to-do list, she has had a fruitful morning.
12 noon
Vanessa takes stock of her half a day’s work. Four opportunities have been identified. The opportunity value is worth $480,000 (4 x $120,000). This is added to her sales funnel. She has four new eggs in her basket to work on.
Vanessa has a 400% greater chance of success. I’d prefer to have Vanessa’s sales funnel than Sam’s.
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How to approach your Prospecting Day
Traps to Avoid when Prospecting
The moment a person on the other end of the phone says, “Yes, we’re in the market for that now”, don’t get excited and propose a price and try to close. Don’t start to sell. Stick to your single purpose for the call – identifying a buying cycle and making an appointment.
Taking a ‘No’ as a form of personal rejection is something you need to overcome. Your prospects are saying “No, I’m not in a buying cycle.” They’re not making a judgement about you. Generate a sense of personal distance from the ‘No’ you receive. It’s not directed at you as a person.
Avoid the suspect accounts which are crowded. Unless your company is the dominant player in the market, try to steer towards the areas in the market which are open to you. Avoiding conflict with your competitors is smart.
Your sales manager has already heard a lot of excuses, such as “I don’t need to prospect. My sales funnel is full”, or “I’m too busy”. What your sales manager is hearing is “I’m too lazy” or “I’m too scared”.
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