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Guest post by: Bill Truax Become an Author

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You guessed it, Prospecting. Why? Because you can’t use any of your other selling skills, ideas, or training until you have someone to show them to – a prospect.

Prospecting is the most important, yet least used and taught skill in selling.

Most salespeople are never taught a Prospecting system!

Please note that Prospecting for our discussion here means actually talking to someone with the intent of making them a customer. Looking in directories for names to call on is research – not Prospecting.

The art of Prospecting has come a long way in the last few years. Telemarketing took over the Prospecting world in the 80’s early 90’s. I know one Insurance company that used a talking computer to make all their prospecting calls. Really.

But then voice mail came in and made telemarketing more of a challenge. I personally love voice mail because it allows me to leave exactly the message I want the prospect to hear. But voice mail can also put us off for a long time. That is where the importance of alternative prospecting techniques and persistence come in.

For younger salespeople, face to face Prospecting has never been a skill. They got into sales after the telemarketing boom hit, so that is all they know or maybe even direct mail, which is really expensive, but works for some products. However, you have to follow up on direct mail and that usually takes you back to telemarketing.

Now, however, I find that going into a prospect company and actually making field Prospecting calls is yielding rich rewards.

Like everything else, field Prospecting has had to adapt to the 21st Century which I feel it has done wonderfully. One of those adaptations has been that we actually use the field Prospecting wording on the phone during our telemarketing.

However, as I have said several times in the last few weeks, you can’t beat the wonders of making 2-3 field Prospecting calls a day while you are driving in the field. The way I teach this skill, they only take about 4 minutes each. So that is 8-12 minutes of Prospecting a couple of days a week.

Imagine what 6 calls a week for 40 weeks would mean to your sales life! 240 Prospecting calls in one year!!!!

We had one field Prospecting call a few weeks ago where we couldn’t find the front door. It was a plant that came right out to the street and there were cars parked all along the front of the building.

We found an open utility door at one side of the building where a couple of guys were standing so I recited my memorizes Prospecting words and one of the guys said, “you want to meet with Tom, I’ll take you to him.”

So he actually took us right through the entire plant to some offices. We met Tom, I recited my words once again and he said, “You don’t want to talk to me, you should talk with George.”

He took us outside to the front door (it faces sideways which is why we couldn’t find it originally). There was a sign on the door that said, NO SALESMAN SEEN WITHOUT AN APPOINTMENT!

I recited my words to the receptionist and the next thing we knew, we were talking with George in the lobby. They have just become a client of my client company.

As we all know timing is important in sales and our timing was great with George. Imagine what might have happened if we were simply telemarketing this company and kept getting voice mail. When we finally got through it very well could have been too late! I hate to think of how much business I am losing by being “lost in voice mail.”

In conclusion, you must have a Prospecting System of some kind. I strongly recommend a complete Prospecting system that includes extensive use of field Prospecting along with tele-prospecting.

If you are a sales manager, here is a sales tip for you. If you are expecting your field sales professionals to be making Prospecting calls, every once in a while simply ask them to recite their wording for you. If they can, they are making those calls, if they can’t they aren’t.

I strongly encourage all sales managers to add a lot of Prospecting training to their overall sales training programs since Prospecting is by far the most important selling technique since it gives you the opportunity to use the rest of your skills.

Sell Well and Often,

Bill Truax

© copyright 2007 WJ Truax
PS To learn more about Prospecting using Bill’s BLITZ CALL System and to sign up for our free Prospecting Tip of the Week, go to www.BlitzCall.com

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