5 Prospecting Tips From the Field

Don’t Miss the PodCast!  You will want to listen to this one!  SoundCloud —  iTunes — Stitcher

One thing I have noticed for a long time is that sales training is often out of touch with reality.  Often the sales professional reads books written by sales trainers who made their real cold call sale in the 1990’s or they hear from the CEO or corporate product specialist how they should approach their pitch when neither of these individuals has ever walked into or called a business cold.  Today I want to share 5 tips that I developed after spending two full days in the field and closing real sales that came from cold calling, not from inbound leads.

#1 – Walk into every business.  Listen to the podcast episode to understand this in more depth but I am amazed how inefficiently sales people use their time by cherry picking which businesses they walk into.  I have seen this over and over again with sales people in the field who spend more time deciding if they should walk into or call a business than it would take to make the call or walk in!  Just take action and the remember the age old sales truth that the worst thing they can say is “NO”.

#2 – Open Carefully.  Your opening pitch is a mixture of sales talent, timing and human behavior that is by far the most difficult part of sales.  If you are not making sales it is because of your opening, that is just the truth.  Most sales people have no idea how to approach a real person at a business or strike up a conversation with a stranger that isn’t awkward.  Listen to the podcast episode to learn how I approached business owners and employees in the field.

#3 – Follow Up Religiously.  I shared a post on LinkedIn this week that was very interesting.  A study found that only 10% of sales professionals follow up with a prospect more than 3 times, while 80% of sales are made on the 5th to 12th contact.  If a prospect doesn’t tell you “no” that means you need to follow up as often as seems appropriate until they tell you “Yes” or “No”.  In order to make this time efficient, make sure you follow step #1 in this post and use “Next Action Steps” efficiently.  Listen to our podcast episode to learn more about this.

#4 – Track Everything.  If you have not done so already, sign up for a 30 day free trial of the Instant Quote Tool and use the comments section to track who you spoke to, what they said, etc.  We have some big plans for our CRM in 2017 and you will want to stay tuned for that!  In the audio version of this episode, I talk through the type of things I track in order to jog my memory and make effective follow up visits that are targeted to each prospect.

#5 – Delegate procedures.  If you don’t know how to sell, you need to focus on step #2 and learn how to open correctly.  If you do know how to sell, you need to hire / contract with people to scale your ability.  If you are truly a talented sales person and you are doing anything other than cold calling and closing deals, you are losing money, plain and simple!  Listen to the podcast episode to hear what and how I delegate when I am prospecting, I think you will be shocked at how much more efficient you can be!

Have a great day!

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