Some salespeople don’t prospect because they simply don’t believe in prospecting. Are you willing to allow your fate to be controlled by inbound calls? The marketing department? Repeat business? A major perk of being in sales is having a much greater influence on your own destiny.
Read these six tips, then make your own choice.
1. You can’t close what you don’t first prospect.
How am I ever going to get deals to close if I don’t first prospect?
“But David, our telephone rings. Our website is great. Our pricing is good. We get referrals get repeat customers.” Great. I love all that. But you know what? That’s not going to be enough.
2. Are you willing to put your success in someone else’s hands?
If you’re thinking, I’m going to rely on existing customers, or I’m going to rely on referrals. What you’re really saying is that all future business relies on all your customers doing nice things for you.
I’m going to rely on advertising or marketing. So you’re going to rely on your marketing team or advertising, but what you’re really doing is entrusting yourself to other people.
Ask yourself, Why are you in sales? Because you want to control your destiny. You control your destiny by prospecting.
3. Waiting for the phone to ring is not a business strategy.
That’s an order fulfillment strategy.
A lot of people say, “Well, our business is all generated. It is all done because we have people who call in and place orders.” That’s an order-taker. That’s not a salesperson. What happens when the phone doesn’t ring?
When times are good, you may get the phone to ring a lot. I get that. A couple years ago, I was hearing that a lot from companies and salespeople. As merchant service sales professionals we are a feet on the street business. We need to be actively Prospecting.
4. You have a solution.
Others need to hear about it. If you have the ability to help someone, you owe it to them to reach out. You have a solution others need to hear about, and they’re not going to hear about it unless you pick up the phone and call them. One-to-one calling, one-to-one prospecting meeting in person is really nothing more than very focused advertising or marketing. But it’s advertising or marketing you control. It’s not in the hands of somebody else.
5. Change your mindset and you’ll change your destiny.
As you have heard me say time and time again, Mindset is everything. When you change your mindset about prospecting, it is amazing how you’ll change your results.
I want you to look at prospecting as the starting point for success—for you and for your customer. I can take two people and give them virtually the same list. If one person has a great attitude, and the other one doesn’t like prospecting, guess who’s going to have the best results?
Of course the one who has the right mindset.
- When you go into a call and your focus is to help people…
- When you know you can provide them with a solution because you’ve been able to help others like them…
- Or when you realize that this is just a conversation, it’s not world peace…
THEN…your mindset changes. And that changes your destiny.
6. It’s not about what you sell.
It’s why you sell that matters. A lot of people don’t believe in prospecting because they don’t believe in their product. “Our product isn’t any good.” Hold on here folks. Big mistake. Nobody buys anything just to buy something. They buy something because they’re trying to solve a problem, fix something, correct something.
It’s why you sell. That’s what matters. Take these 6 tips and go solve a problem.
Happy Selling,
David
