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Sales Prospecting Is a Dirty Business (or Why a Clean Desk Is Not a Good Sign)

Written by: Don Zihlman

Article Overview: Prospecting is the foundation of sales. Just like digging a foundation when you build is dirty but necessary, so is prospecting. Without a good foundation your house can crumble. Without prospecting your sales business can also come down around you.

Sales Prospecting Is a Dirty Business (or Why a Clean Desk Is Not a Good Sign)

In my former life as a sales manager for a broadcast company, we had hired a new salesman who had come from the retail world. He had an outgoing personality, a great handshake, a smile on his face, and the cleanest and most organized desk I had ever seen. Unfortunately his clean desk was a result from the fact that he couldn't bring himself to make prospecting sales calls.. he couldn't do it on the phone, and he couldn't get in the car and visit new prospective customers in person. Instead, he focused his energies into organizing his desk. His was the neatest and most organized desk not in the just the sales department, but throughout the entire broadcast company.
In the sales world we have the term "Call Reluctance", a person just can't bring him or herself to make the necessary sales call on a new prospective client. Everyone suffers from this to one degree or another, but any successful salesperson overcomes it.

I don't think there is a business in existence that doesn't require its sales people to prospect for sales to one degree or another. If you don't find new clients, the day will come where you may not have any, or just a few. Clients do come and go. Many may stay with you for years, but there will always be attrition. A valuable contact may leave a company, retire, be promoted, or the company itself may change directions, change suppliers, or possibly go out of business. For whatever reason change occurs, a good salesperson has to have a plan for finding new clients.

Why do so many sales people resist prospecting particularly cold calling? Rejection. We all hate rejection. Don't take it personally. I guess for some people that's easier said than done. Prospecting is just like any other skill, do it enough and it will become second nature. I have always thought of prospecting as the "down and dirty" part of sales. I don't mean this negatively. It's like digging out a foundation before you build your house. It's the dirty part of the job, but it has to be done. Build a poor foundation, and your house will come down around you.

So suck it up, tell yourself that prospecting is necessary. Set aside a time each day for prospecting, and do it. If you devote just 1 hour per day to prospecting, that's 5 hours per week, and 240 hours of prospecting per year. (I gave you four weeks of vacation...probably more than you deserve.)

Whatever happened to the guy with the clean desk? We learned that instead of making prospecting sales calls, he was going home everyday to watch the soaps, and he would return to the office about 4 in the afternoon. We quickly made it possible for him to watch daytime TV all day.

Related Articles
  Desk Audit
  Sales Prospecting Techniques
  Sales Prospecting for Sales Results
  What is the Most Important Selling Technique?©
  Prospecting it is simple only DOING counts

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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".
New Small Business Topic - Hello everyone, I'm on the lookout for new topics to add to my site. We just launched a Franchising section and are planning Human Resources section. Do you have any thoughts for a new section? Here's a list of what we currently have: Angel Investors Branding Bank Loans Business Coaching Business Plan Franchises (New) Insurance Legal Marketing Public Relations Sales Small Biz Loans Venture Capital
Online Sales and Marketing vs Traditional - Hi Evan, I am noticing that many of the posts in the Sales/Marketing section deal with online marketing, SEM and and SEO and Affiliates. I was wondering if it might be a good idea to separate that section into two; 1) Online Sales and Marketing; 2) Traditional Sales and Marketing
Re: Online Sales and Marketing vs Traditional - [quote="ltrahan":31w9r2iz]Hi Evan, I am noticing that many of the posts in the Sales/Marketing section deal with online marketing, SEM and and SEO and Affiliates. I was wondering if it might be a good idea to separate that section into two; 1) Online Sales and Marketing; 2) Traditional Sales and Marketing[/quote:31w9r2iz] I second the request...
My entry - 1. The Best Business Books Ever: The 100 Most Influential Business Books You'll Never Have Time to Read - this is a fascinating book about the history of Business theory, and I'd recommend it to anybody. 2. The Big Book of Small Business: You Don't Have to Run Your Business by the Seat of Your Pants, by Tom Gegax. Ditto. 3. PADI: The Business of Diving Book Okay, so this book won't be of use to anyone who doesn't want to start a scuba store, but I did, and this book was of course invaluable to me in reaching that goal.


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