Let’s Get Fanatical About Prospecting

Prospecting and sales are part of every business.  In fact, there is no business until you have a sale.

To refresh my skills and motivate me, I read Fanatical Prospecting: The Ultimate Guide to Opening Sales Conversations and Filling the Pipeline by Leveraging Social Selling, Telephone, Email, Text, and Cold Calling, by Jeb Blount and Mike Weinberg.

No matter what industry you are in, the points discussed in the book will apply to you. 

There are several quotes and points the author made that I really like:

• “It’s never about the call, it’s about the willingness of the salesperson to interrupt.” I couldn’t agree more with this statement.
• Any prospecting you do in a 30-day period will pay off for the next 90 days.
• You need to be constantly pushing new opportunities into your pipeline.
• There are three mindsets that hold salespeople back from prospecting: procrastination, perfectionism, and paralysis from analysis.
• When prospecting, you need to be laser focused. Stay off of email, turn off your CRM, put away your cell phone, and put a sign on your door that says, “Cannot Be Disturbed.”
• When you are making your prospecting calls, always ask yourself “is this the best prospect to call?”

These key points alone are likely to help you be more successful.

The book didn’t shed any new light or new skill on sales prospecting.  However, I’m not so sure this is bad.  Sometimes authors tend to overcomplicate sales, marketing, and business development, when in reality it’s all about doing the basic things at a very high level and consistently.  That’s what this book emphasizes.

I enjoyed this book for the simple reason that I needed a kick in the pants to get my marketing back on track.  My 3 items to implement immediately are: (1) each week, make a list of three existing and prospective clients, and referral sources, to call on Tuesday and Wednesday (equals 24 each month and 288 for the year); (2) prepare for each call by writing down what I want to say and my objective for the call; (3) know that I will interrupt someone, so I won’t take it personally if they don’t want to talk to me right when I call.

What are three ideas you can put in place right now to improve your marketing and business development?  I’d love to hear any of your ideas you’d like to share.  Call me at 248-455-6500 or email at [email protected]