“If you do it right, you should be able to make 10 calls and get 5 appointments”

Most sales people hate prospecting.

Why is that? If prospecting is such an important skill, why do so few sales people enjoy doing it? I guess the reason is fairly obvious. It’s

Fear of rejection

So why are so many sales people rejected when they get on the telephone and seek to make appointments with strangers? I think there are three main reasons. The first can be summed up with what most sales people tell me is the number one objection that they get from prospects on the telephone…

“I’m not interested!”

We’ve all heard it, haven’t we? And we’ve all used this line with a sales person or telephone canvasser who has called us too haven’t we? So why would a prospect say that they are not interested?

I believe it is because…

1. What most sales people say is not interesting!

What you say within the first 30 seconds of a cold prospecting telephone call is critical to the successful outcome of the call. What you say has to “grab” the prospect’s attention and get a response (either spoken or unspoken of…

“Tell me more!”

So my advice is spend some serious time developing a written script for what you are going to say in those first 30 seconds. Some sales people say, “I don’t want to use a script. I want to sound natural.” You will sound natural if you develop a good script and then practise it. The second reason I believe most sales people fail to gain appointments on the telephone is because…

2. Most sales people talk too much about their product or service on the phone

The purpose of your telephone call should not be to sell your company, your product or your services. It should be to sell the appointment. Nothing else!

The third reason I think most sales people do badly with telephone prospecting is because…

3. Most sales people have never learned how to prospect effectively

Prospecting is a skill and like all skills we are not born with them. Skills are developed. Yet so many sales people fail to understand this. They jump on the telephone with lots of enthusiasm and optimism but no real skills and strategies, and then wonder why they fail to make appointments.

Having experienced a lot of rejection, they then avoid prospecting, and if you don’t generate new leads or you wait for your company to provide them to you, then you’ll always be an average sales person, producing average results and living an average life. So how can you become a Top Gun sales person?

Develop this vital skill of prospecting

Learn them! Don’t leave it to chance with a hit and miss approach to prospecting.

I’ve seen sales people come to our TOP GUN® Mastery Workshop on prospecting with no confidence, and a dismal conversion ratio (eg. 1 in 45. That is, one appointment made for every 45 calls) and within 7 days they were able to confidently get on the telephone and convert 5 out of every 10 calls into appointments. Amazing? No - not really!

Brad’s story

About 2 years ago a young sales person came to our Sales Mastery Workshop on prospecting. His name was Brad and he worked for an IT company. Brad was struggling and his sales results placed him near the bottom of the list of 26 sales people in his company.

After attending this workshop, Brad’s ability to gain appointments and get in front of qualified buyers improved dramatically. Within 2 months Brad had moved up to near the top of the list of sales achievers in his company. Since then Brad has continued to produce exceptionally good results and Brad credits this dramatic turnaround with the development of his prospecting skills.

By the way, Brad is happy to tell you his story if you’d care to call him. His number is 0405 100 840.

When I last spoke to Brad his conversion ratio on the telephone was 6.3 /10. That is, on average for every 10 calls Brad makes, he gets 6.3 appointments.

So how does that compare to your conversion ratio on the telephone? Would you like to be in front of more prospective buyers? My advice to you if you are in sales or in business for yourself, is develop your prospecting skills.

A tip on prospecting if you are a Sales Manager

If you are in Management, don’t expect your sales people to be able to get appointments and gain new and extra business for you if you haven’t provided them with this vital skill training. Investing time and money into this vital skill will provide an enormous return on your investment and will go on paying you, year after year after year.

Have a great week. Make it a great week!

Stumble it!