Prospecting For Dummies

The Most Important Part Of Your Work Day

Telephone Prospecting

The First Call

There are 2 predominant ways you can go about your prospecting, phone or in person.

Now a days you can also throw in social media, and if you're really smart, you can incorporate some direct response marketing. 

I'll go over each one in depth here. 

Let's start with the phone. 

The phone is an awesome prospecting tool for it's ability to get your message in front of a lot of people in a short period of time. 

It's very easy to get through 100 calls in a day. 

Of course you won't talk to 100 decision makers in a day, but you can also leave messages that make people want to call you back. 

When telephone prospecting, in my experience it's best that you develop a script that you can use when making your calls. 

I would also recommend that you make a script for the DM (Decision Maker) as well as the GK (Gate Keeper). 

More times than not, your not going to get in contact with the decision maker on the first call, so your going to have to work on the gate keeper.

The gate keepers job is to filter calls and save the decision maker time. 

Time from talking to people who are not important.

So because of that, the gate keeper has a lot of power and she/he can basically stop your sale before it even starts.

In many cases they can make or break the sale, so you have to sell them first, before you can get to the decision maker. 

That's why you should have a script for the gate keeper. 

Prior to the call you should know what problem your product or service solves. 

So when developing your script, you want to show the gate keeper why he/she should let you through to the decision maker.

Let's do an example...

There you go, that would be my first call to that business.

Make sure you take down the gate keepers name, the decision makers name, and what day and time you will be calling them back. 

The Follow Up Call

After the first call, you've already made your introduction, and you've made a good impression on the Gate Keeper.

She gave you the DM's name, and she told you when a good time was to call him back. 

At this point it's fair to say she's already determined your a sales person, but if your nice to her, and she thinks you may have some information that her boss might be interested in, your in a good spot. 

On the next call the goal changes just a little bit, now your goal is to get the decision maker on the phone and set an appointment.

The call is going to go something like this...

I know, never happens like that right?

Well, sometimes it actually does, it's just that easy, but most times its' not. It's actually 3 ways that second call can go, more or less. These are in no way written in stone, but in my experience these 3 outcomes are by far the most common so let's go through them...

2nd Variation to 2nd call

Alright, so here you have a decision to make.

You can choose to either leave a message, or just find out what's another time and day to call him and call back.

Me, I usually go with the second option.

Why don't I just leave a message? Because I need to get this guy on the phone. Leaving a message is just going to tip him off on what I'm trying to do and 9/10 times, he's not going to call you back.

When it comes to prospecting you are just trying to qualify prospects. Your just trying to see if they are worth continuing to pursue, is this going to be a mutual benefit for both parties here. 

So you are trying to push him one way or the other, no in between.

You either want an appointment or you want the DM to tell you he's not interested and has no use for your service at this time. 

That way you can but him in follow up bucket to reach out to him again in a 3 months, 6 months or a year and move on to the next call.

So here, I'll show you how I would handle this situation...

Then, I would proceed with calling tomorrow morning. I would say after the 3rd time of trying to get the DM on the phone with no answer, at that time I would leave a message.

At this point the GK has let the DM know you have been trying to reach him and he's just been ignoring you. 

So after I leave that message, and I still don't get a response I would just put him in the follow bucket and keep it moving. 

Now let's play out the 3rd scenario, the rejection.

3rd Variation to 2nd Call

That's telephone prospecting in a nutshell.

Of course there a million different ways things could go and I could never give you every single scenario you might encounter, but this is good foundation to build upon. 

Let's move on...

In-Person Prospecting

This form of prospecting is what freaks the most people out.

Actually walking up to a stranger, introducing yourself, and trying to get that stranger to actually sit down and listen to what you have to sell.

In my time in the field I've heard this form of prospecting referred to in many different ways; customer facing, door swinging, face to face, door knocking, etc.

It's all the same no reason to get caught op on what's it's actually called. 

The process for prospecting in person is the same as the phone, the same basic skills still apply.

Remember, this whole thing is not as big a deal as you think. 

These are all people, just people, just like you.

They all have feelings, just like you, and they are not better than you nor are they less than you, remember that and you'll be fine.

Let's walk this process through just like we did with the phone...

One thing to keep in mind when prospecting in person, is that now people actually see you, obvious right? So what does that mean to you as a master sales person looking to get an appointment? (remember the whole goal of prospecting is not to sell your product or service, your only selling the appointment).

1st impressions are everything.

Doesn't matter what you think about how it should or shouldn't be, it's what it is.

We ALL make a judgement on people when we first meet them.

Over time, as we get to know that person and see them in different environments, amongst different people, different circumstances, that judgement can change, but in sales, many times you don't get a second chance.

When that prospect sees you the first time they've already pegged you a certain way in their mind, and whether it's actually true or not doesn't matter, its reality for them.  

This means when you're getting ready to go out and hit the streets, make sure you're on your A-game. 

That means being well groomed, well-dressed, up-beat, and positive. 

I am a firm believer that ones personal style is personal, and you have to be comfortable in what your wearing number one.

With that being said if you feel most comfortable in a t-shirt and pajamas, I urge you find professional attire that you feel comfortable in. 

Once you have your appearance (the first thing a customer sees before you even open your mouth) in order, next is to have your approach down.

Again, the approach in person is the same as over the phone, the beginning is going go just like the first call on the phone...(refer to earlier section titled 1st call)

Instead of saying you'll call back when he's available, your going to stop back in when the GK told you the DM would be there.

One tip that I would add here capitalizes on the fact that now you are prospecting in person instead of over the phone...

Bring Gifts.

Coming to the table with something for GK and the DM when you first come in opens the doors for you drastically.

This is a super ninja tactic I'm giving you here, don't sleep on this tip. 

The reason this works is that it invokes the principle of reciprocation. Which is a classic persuasion technique used by a many sales men and women for millennia...I wrote about it here.

When you step into the place of business with a gift in hand, the GK and the DM will be much more open to listening to what you have to say.

A natural human response kicks in they start thinking...

"Hey this guy just spent some money probably out of his own pocket to bring us some doughnuts (or whatever gift you like) the least we could do is listen to what he might have to say".

I repeat this is a powerful tool and the corner stone of direct response marketing which I will discuss more later in this training module. 

E-Mail Prospecting

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