Sales Tip: How to Stop Wimping Out on Prospecting

You never have to like prospecting, you just have to do it.

How many of us really enjoy prospecting? The majority of us will say that it isn’t on our top ten favorite tasks to do each day. If you like prospecting (or tell yourself you do) you can stop reading this article now. The rest would be a waste of your time.

If you want to up your game and learn to “Eat the Frog” when it comes to prospecting, here are some tips.

• First let’s have a reality check for a moment. Go stare at your face and be real with yourself! Admit you don’t like it, but you can create a behavior driven process around the task.
• Do you have a prospecting plan? Ok, I mean a real plan. Something that looks like this:
• Cold Calling
  • 25 Dials
  • 6 unique conversations
  • 1 meeting set
• LinkedIn
  • Write 2 recommendations
  • Write one post per week
  • Ask for 2 introductions/ referrals
• Do you block out time on your calendar daily or weekly?
  • If you don’t, then reality is that it is not important to you.
  • Do you protect the time you have blocked out?
• Last but most certainly not least, what are the stories that you are telling yourself about prospecting that may be holding you back? Stories such as...
  • I can’t make calls on Monday morning, no one wants to answer then.
  • I can’t just walk in to a company and ask to speak with the president.
  • Cold calling doesn’t work in my industry.
  • Social media doesn’t work for my target market.

Stop wimping out on yourself, realize you don’t like it and get it done as early in your day as possible. This way you aren’t carrying the burden of the weight all day. Stand up super sales people and do it! You don’t have to like it, but you may surprise yourself when you choose to do it anyway.