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The 7 Secrets to Improved Prospecting

Written by: Cheryl A. Clausen

Article Overview: Prospecting is a core skill anyone in sales absolutely must master. Without prospects you have no one to sell to. Without someone to sell to you can’t sell.

The 7 Secrets to Improved Prospecting

Prospecting is a core skill anyone in sales absolutely must master. Without prospects you have no one to sell to. Without someone to sell to you can’t sell.

Plus if you don’t have prospects you don’t have a business…you have a hobby. There are a lot of salespeople who keep very busy at their hobby and have little to show for their efforts. It’s frustrating to work so hard and come up short.

Don’t let this be you. Instead use the 7 secrets for prospecting Top Producers use to develop a profitable business and exceed their sales goals:

• Identify a target market you can dominate
  
  
• Clearly know what the people in your target market want
  
  
• Build a business around giving the people in your target market what they want. This is your niche. A niche represents the way you work with the people you sell to, your target market.
  
  
• Focus on connecting with the people in your target market and transforming them into prospects
  
  
• Communicate with the people in your target market in a way that gets them to want to know more about you and what you do
  
  
• Networking isn’t a social activity it’s a lead generation activity, treat it appropriately
  
  
• Get leads coming to you and get them to act now

The last secret is the most important of all. You have to get ideal prospects contacting you on a consistent basis. Without that you constantly face the feast and famine roller coaster between periods where you have lots of prospects and periods where you have no one in your funnel.

However, you can’t make that happen until you get the first 5 secrets right. Because you have to understand what makes you attractive to your prospects and how to get them to act. Most salespeople think sales success is all about the actions you take.

Real sales success is all about the actions you get highly qualified prospects to take. Each action should move them closer to doing business with you. The prospect willingly takes those actions. Consequently you get better results with far less work on your part.

You become far more attractive because you’re the one being sought out rather than the one chasing down prospects. This makes you not just more financially secure it makes you a whole lot more confident because you no longer have to deal with periods where you have no idea where your next prospect will come from.

Related Articles
  Sales Prospecting Techniques
  Get In a Rut
  Prospecting's 8 Simple Steps©
  Prospecting it is simple only DOING counts
  Sales Prospecting for Sales Results

Article Tags: consistent basis, core skill, doing business, feast and famine, funnel, lead generation, networking, niche, periods, profitable business, prospects, roller coaster, sales goals, sales success, salespeople, target market, top producers



Related Forum Posts
Prime Means of Selling - Prospecting and Selling aren't the same. Prospecting is finding the few within a target group who are prime candidates for your service. I don't think everyone will agree on what "prime" means but I'd say if the prospects actively want what you're offering and have the ability to pay for what you're offering then they qualify as "prime".
7 words or less for Structogram - Some "7 words or less" (more or less) for Structogram for your comments: Training to get your message across(6) Secrets to get your message across (6) Training so people will listen to you (7) Helping you get your message across (6) Training to learn to get your message across (8) Communications training for yourself and your team (7)
Re: What would you do with your last $1000? - I would put into my business certainly. If money sleeps then you will lose it. Nearly the eaxct situation happened with me. I had my last 750$ in my pocket to make money online. If I spent it in a wrong way, I would have to lose my chance to own business on the Internet. But I used it wisely and bought D. Gerl's Insider Secrets to Internet Marketing. Then put the rest of the money into Google Adwords and could save my business. But now..... I would continue my monthly membership on SubmitYourArticles Article Submission Service (37$), buy Revolution Wordpress Theme, maintain monthly membership on J. Humpereys ASC membership program and the rest of money put into Google Adwords and Yahoo Ads. Orxan
Re: My Favourite 7 Boldest Entrepreneur Moves of All Time - Hi Evan, I have a new suggestion for "Boldest Entrepreneur Moves of All Time" and a suggestion for your Learning from the Masters series: 1. Boldest Entrepreneur Moves of All Time = Christopher Columbus: "... he saw the possibility of treasure and commerce where others saw only danger. He committed so wholeheartedly to that vision that not even dozens of rejections and ongoing penury could dissuade him from pursuing a journey to Asia via the West. He built on his technical strengths as a seaman to plan a viable journey and eventually marshal an expedition." - Christopher Hoenig, 6 Essential Secrets for Thinking on a New Level I bought Hoenig's book about 10 years ago but couldn't make head or tail of it then... reading it now and finding it inspirational... 2. Nomination for Learning from the Masters video: Dee Hock, founder of VISA. (Source = Hoenig.)
Book: Why Good Girls Don't Get Ahead But Gutsy Girls Do - Book: Why Good Girls Don't Get Ahead But Gutsy Girls Do: Nine Secrets every career woman must know Kate White 1995 Foy years Kate White lived as a good girl - a rule follower, a people pleaser, a busy beaver - until she was passed over for the job of editor-in-chief of a magazine she had been running for months. She finally realized that being gutsy, not good, was the only way to succeed. A gutsy girl : 1. Breaks the rules 2. Has one clear goal for the future 3. Does only what's essential 4. Doesn't worry whether people like her 5. Walks and talks like a winner 6. Asks for what she wants 7. Faces trouble head on 8. Trusts her instincts 9. Takes smart risks This book has NO table of contents, but above are the chapter headings. A good book, although I really wish they'd stop talking about "girls" and start talking about women.


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