Regardless of industry, possibly the No. 1 complaint by sales people as well as small business owners is a dry pipeline. Finding those qualified sales leads through prospecting continues to be a consistent challenge. There are some sales gurus who advocate that prospecting is dead.
In the book, “High-Profit Prospecting: Powerful Strategies to Find the Best Leads and Drive Breakthrough Sales Results,” Mark Hunter shatters the advice of those other sales gurus by providing powerful strategies and tactics to successfully prospect.
Part of high-profit prospecting is overcoming one’s own attitudes. Hunter makes these three powerful statements:
1. “Thinking about prospecting is not prospecting.”
2. “The most valuable asset you have is your own time.”
3. “Calling your friends is not prospecting.”
The book’s 23 chapters are divided into four sections.
In the third chapter, Hunter reviews:
Time management techniques
Qualifying sales leads
Importance of that first impression
Telephone
Customer engagement
Voicemail
Email and other communication
Referrals
Social media
After the last chapter, Hunter summarizes the results of the strategies into a 10-step High Prospecting Sales Action Plan.
This plan begins with planning your work and working your plan. From my experience, too many small business salespeople engage in spray and pray. They spray their prospecting, marketing, etc., actions all over the place and then pray something will stick.
Step 10 returns to the salespeople and their willingness to accept responsibility for their sales success. In a society, where it sometimes appears personal responsibility is an archaic attitude, Hunter makes a key point. Top salespeople never pass blame onto others.
Beyond the rich chapters filled with great advice based upon Hunter’s professional experiences, Hunter has a great Index to help salespeople who are seeking specific advice about attitudes to YouTube. If your sales pipeline is dry or just a trickle, then this book make help turn on the faucet.
Leanne Hoagland-Smith is an author, speaker and executive coach. Her weekly column explores issues that impact the bottom line of firms with fewer than 100 employees. She can be reached at 219-508-2859.