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Invest in your Future; Practice Prospecting

Guest post by: John Brennan

Article Overview: View prospecting as an integral part of your sales pipeline. Prospecting is not something you do when you have time, or something that you rely on others to do, but a routine first step down the road to a sale. Accept that you have to turn over a lot of rocks to find the goodies, and just take one suspect at a time.

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Invest in your Future; Practice Prospecting

Whether it is by geography, vertical market or sales volume you should prospect systematically. Reason; none of the good prospects will fall between the gaps, you will get a sense of accomplishment in having covered a specific market segment, and it is more efficient.

Prospecting should be part of your daily activity. Not monthly, or weekly, but daily. If you want a steady supply of prospects, you must have a steady supply of leads. You should not rely exclusively on marketing, advertising, your web site or call-ins for leads. None of them will be as good as the ones you generate yourself.

Invest a couple of hours a day prospecting. It provides some relief from the pressure of face-to face sales calls, and you will be amazed how many suspects you can meet in two hours.
Create a sense of urgency as you prospect. Every conversation, voice-mail, piece of literature should move the suspect to some action, no matter how small. The best way to do this is to offer plenty of benefits.

For example,
"Mr./Ms suspect, we have a new/updated/revolutionary/breakthrough/unique/ " (creates urgency)
" idea/program/concept/solution/system " (never "a product")
"that will save you money/make you money/improve productivity." (Benefit)
"I'm offering you an opportunity today to evaluate/see for yourself/judge for yourself/determine " (you are in control, Mr. Prospect.)
"whether or not it will be of benefit and value to you." (Again, answers the WIIFM?).
"Our senior account exec/director of sales/customer relationship manager" (never a "sales rep". This is important.)
"will be in their area tomorrow" (not a week from Friday. This is urgent!)
"Are you in at 7 AM or 8 AM tomorrow?" (Not when do you have time tomorrow. Urgency again).

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Home > Sales > John Brennan > Invest in your Future Practice Prospecting
Article Tags: prospects, sales pipeline

About the Author: John Brennan
RSS for John's articles - Visit John's website

John Brennan Ed.D. Dr. Brennan is President of Interpersonal Development, LLC, a training and development firm. Interpersonal Development has provided sales training and coaching to more than 3,000 sales reps from over 100 companies. A native of Australia, Dr. Brennan received his doctorate from the University of Rochester. His dissertation researched the effectiveness of Behavioral Modeling Technology in training people in interpersonal skills. While he has spent most of his career designing or delivering training, he was also a Vice-President of Sales of a training and development franchise with operations in 25 markets. Dr. Brennan has designed and delivered sales training in North America, Asia, Europe, Australia and the Middle East. He has been a guest speaker at numerous national and regional professional conferences. When Microsoft wanted Best Practices articles on sales for their web site, they called Dr. Brennan. The results are at http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/FX011387391033.aspx His firm’s clients have included Volvo, The Prudential, Merrill Lynch, Eastman Kodak, Gannett, Equifax Europe, the Economist Group and countless small businesses.

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Related Forum Posts
Prime Means of Selling 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".
Go for both! Go for both! - That's life Julie as a business owner. You never have enough resources. Invest the money in your patent if you really have something worth protecting and bootstrap your marketing efforts so that you get some clients and continue to grow.
Future Financial Corporation Future Financial Corporation - I've never heard of Future Financial Corporation is this a new company?
$500,000 Give-away $500,000 Give-away - I like dreaming so here goes... note: I didn't have much time to dream this up... 1. pay off my mom's mortgage 2. Take family (mom and brothers) on Vacation - probably send each one off to their own destinaton - no need to mix pleasure and family members. 3. buy some beach front property in the US 4. Invest in a business 5. Buy myself some nice suits and shirts.
Hiring good people Hiring good people - Thanks everyone. From the PROFIT companies the success formula seems to be: - Give employees responsibilities that make them stretch themselves - Provide them with a good work environment and happy co-workers - Invest in them by giving them training - Build projects with them to give them some ownership of the idea - Make sure they fit your company culture And almost all of them say: Hire slow, fire fast.


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