Gold Diggers Strike It Rich
What makes the difference between you and the rest of the pack? Are you content to sit back and enjoy being average or do you crave something more? Break out of mediocrity with sharpened skills. The one skill that will make the biggest difference in the shortest time is your ability to become a world class gold-digger.
Most salespeople dread prospecting. It’s tedious, often unrewarding and you tend to get sick of all that rejection. Even though you try not to take it personally, after a morning laden with “No’s” and “Not interested’s” it’s hard not to feel a bit battle-scarred. Even when the prospect appears interested, as soon as you start telling them about your product or service, they slither off the hook. Maybe it’s time to get back to basics.
Why are you prospecting? Are you calling to ask prospects if they need any help? NO!!!
Prospecting is not about helping the prospect. That comes later when you visit them. You’re not qualified to “help” them when you’re prospecting because you don’t really know anything about them. You may think you do, you may have made assumptions or heard rumours about them, but until you ask them the right questions and listen to their answers, you know nothing. The time for asking those probing questions is not when you’re prospecting.
So why then are you prospecting? To get the appointment. Nothing more, nothing less.
Do you need to tell them all about who you are, what your company does and what you’re selling? Absolutely not.
Tell them your name and your company’s name, but keep it brief and don’t start product peddling. You may have the most amazing product that will make their life sweeter, easier, richer, but you’re not going to tell the prospect all about it, because you have not yet ascertained a need from your prospect that your wonder product can fulfill.
Script it.
If you want prospects to hang up on you, tell you they’ll think about it or reject you, by all means tell them about your incredible product. If you’d prefer a more successful outcome, tell them you’re in their area tomorrow or the next day and you just wanted to drop by to show them your fabulous new system for making their life easier, richer, sweeter... Reinforce to them that you’re not trying to sell them anything; you simply would like to show them this terrific system so that in the future, if they have a need, they’ll know what’s available. Have a script that you can use every time you prospect. If you need help formulating your script, check out our $5 e-chapter on Prospecting.
Big Vs Small
Mix it up. It’s tempting to focus on big juicy prospects, because landing one of them will make your budget for a week or month. Putting effort into smaller prospects will pay dividends too and a large number of smaller customers will spread your risk so that if you lost one or two somewhere down the line, it wouldn’t hurt you too much. So while you’re out there, day after day, looking for that huge nugget that will make your fortune, don’t overlook the little pebbles.
Keep Statistics
For every 10 prospecting calls you make, you should net five appointments and from those five appointments, you should net at least one sale. Keep statistics so you can track your progress. If you’re not getting satisfactory results for your efforts, then you need to learn more.
Prospecting is the one sales skill that when done properly can bring you immediate results. It’s not just about knocking on doors, making the phone calls, doing the numbers. It’s really about making every door knock and phone call count.