Do you ever hear that your salespeople don't have enough time to prospect? Share this video with your people who might struggle with consistent prospecting. This video is a part of our new series with Mark Trinkle: The 10 Commandments of Sales Success. Today we dive into number two-Thou Shalt Always Be Prospecting.

Transcript:

Welcome to today's message, which is the second in a 10 part series on the 10 Commandments of Sales Success. Today we are looking at the second commandment, and as you can see from the screen, the second commandment is Thou Shalt Always Be Prospecting. Now, I know you probably don't land in the office in the morning, necessarily fired up to prospect, but it's kind of like being a kid and eating your vegetables. And I can remember when I told my mom and dad, "Mom, Dad, I don't like vegetables." And their answer was (and you probably know where I'm going), "You don't have to like it, you just have to do it. You have to eat 'em." I think that's the same with prospecting every day. And here's the real danger.

You don't have to prospect on any given day. You can take a day off. You can probably take a week off. Heck, you can probably take two weeks off and you won't notice any concern right away or any danger right away. But down the road, your pipeline is bound to take a hit. Great prospectors prospect just enough each day, each week, each month to continue to put flow into the top of that pipeline.

One more thing about prospecting before I let you go... don't tell me you don't have time. You can tell me a lot of things, but don't tell me you don't have time. That's a myth. Our good friend Bigfoot is on the screen here to remind us that is a myth and here's why. If I ask you to go call a hundred different people, to make a hundred dials, our math tells us you're probably gonna talk to 10 people.

Now, I'm gonna try to trick you. I'm gonna ask you, "How much time will it take you to not talk to 90 people?" One more time. "How much time will it take you to not talk to 90 people?" And of the 10 people that you will talk to, my guess is you'll probably have short conversations with some of them. You might even set a few appointments with some others, but it's just not going to take much time out of your day.

You can add up the time and then you have to decide for yourself. Do you not have the time or do you not have the drive and the ambition to get after it?

Have a great day and as always, thank you so much for listening!

Watch all of the Commandments Here

Some major shifts have occurred in the way that you should be prospecting for sales opportunities. But has your prospecting plan changed with it?

I have always enjoyed watching the movie “Glengarry Glen Ross” because of the sales scene with Alec Baldwin. You know the scene, don’t you? ABC – which means always be closing. But I prefer ABP – always be prospecting. After all, there will not be much to close if you don’t have a prospecting plan that fills your pipeline with closeable opportunities.

I started my sales career in the early 1990’s and yes, I did have a “bag phone” for my first cell phone. I laugh now as all cell phones can fit in your pocket or your purse but back then the bag phone was a big deal. Fortunately, our cell phones have changed quite dramatically since then.

Do you know what else has changed? If you guessed prospecting strategies, you guessed correctly. To be even more clear, some major shifts have occurred in the way that you should be prospecting for sales opportunities.

The last 5 years have seen two major changes in how buyers interact with sellers:

1. Prospects are starting the sales process all by themselves. No longer are they sitting and waiting for sellers to find them. They are the ones who get the ball rolling by reaching out to sellers who have been recommended to them (this is precisely why referrals…or what we call introductions are so important).
2. And when those prospects start the sales process, they are armed with more information than ever before. As it turns out this thing called the internet might just be around for a few more years.

So here is my question for you – cell phones have changed. The times have changed. Selling has changed. But has your prospecting plan changed with it? Do you track your prospecting effort? Do you measure the effectiveness of the elements in your prospecting plan so you know which ones you should do more of and which ones you should consider putting off to the side? Are you taking a diversified approach meaning you use a combination of phone and email? Are you including video when you prospect? Are you blogging and putting out value-added content that positions you as a thought leader or even a subject matter expert?

ABP – always be prospecting. Just don’t forget your prospecting plan before you start.