Mark Hunter's Blog, page 42

Monday Motivation Video: Your Money Hours and Your Success

What are money hours? What are you doing to maximize your two money hours each day? This is an important term that you need to understand and apply now.

Money hours include the first hour of the day and another hour in the day that you select when you engage in the most critical sales activity prospecting, closing a deal and working with a customer. This may be a different hour each day. No matter what, you need to schedule and be game on for it.

 

 

When you get these two hours right, it’s amazing how much you can accomplish the rest of the day. Motivation creates motivation, success creates success. There’s a reason why some salespeople are more successful than others. It’s simple – they use their time more effectively! Motivation does not occur by chance, success does not occur by chance; they occur because the people who are successful and motivated, plan for it.

Too many salespeople wander through their day doing just that, “wandering.” They merely wander from one activity to the next, thinking they’re productive. This is not being productive, it is being busy. Anybody can be busy- that’s certainly not an issue in today’s world. What’s hard to do is be productive, especially in the face of too many demands on your time. If you don’t control your time, your time will control you. You must plan your day and within your day, plan how to use your time in a way that helps you achieve your desired outcome. As I looked at my calendar and email this morning, I noticed that both were full and overflowing. In that moment, I had a decision to make: I could tackle the email and “stuff” on my calendar or I could use my calendar to focus my time. I chose the later, because I blocked time on my calendar for my most important activities: ones that will create the greatest impact.

How do you set your day? The idea of having two money hours is just a start. Once you master having two money hours each day, I encourage you to increase it to three, four and to the point where every hour is a money hour. Your ability to create money hours each day will result in significant greater level of success. I have shared this concept with thousands of salespeople and have seen the results. This simple activity when done right has taken some of the lowest performers and turned them into high-performers. I’ve watched already high-level salespeople run with this idea and create 5 – 6 money hours per day and double their results. It works! There’s a reason why highly productive, successful people are that way. It’s comes down to them choosing to using their time efficiently.  Notice I used the word “choose.” This was intentional. It’s our time, and it’s our decision what we do with it. Don’t let others choose it for you. It’s not their time, it’s your time. This is just one of the many proven ideas I talk about in my new book, A Mind For Sales. I highly suggest you use your time wisely by buying the book right now – click here!

Cop yright 2020, Mark Hunter “The Sales Hunter” Sales Motivation Blog.  Mark Hunter is the author of High-Profit Prospecting: Powerful Strategies to Find the Best Leads and Drive Breakthrough Sales Result

Stop the Discounting by Increasing your Value

Why are you cutting your price? Cutting your price due to the demands of the customer is stupid! Yes, you read it correctly: it is stupid. The only reason the customer demands you cut your price is because they don’t see enough value in what you’re selling. The reason they don’t see more value is because you have raced the process forward, most likely because the customer asked about your price or gave some other buying signal. Selling fast is great, but selling fast can often be cheap and lousy!

Stop the Discounting by Increasing your Value:

 

 

Your goal is to create enough value to warrant the price you want. How do you create more value? By taking the time to ask questions, listen and build on what the customer says. The customer will gladly pay more once they see enough value. Don’t use the argument with me about how you have to cut your price, because if you don’t they’ll buy the same product/service from a competitor. That’s garbage! Why are you selling what your competitor is selling? You’re not your competitor. You are you, and you’re better than your competitor. Stop thinking you need to sell at the same price as them.

Every customer comes into a buying situation with two preconceived notions. First, they think they know what they want. Second, they think they can get it for less money. These are two universal ideals. You go into situations with these thoughts, and yes, I do too.

Your customer thinks they know what they want based off of their experience and knowledge. Apple recently rolled out the iPhone 11 Pro. You may not have been in the market for a new phone expecting to only pay a certain price. However, after looking at the features of the iPhone 11 Pro, you changed your mind about the value and suddenly justified in your own mind why paying more would be a smart move. What happened? You became more educated and found a new level of value. This is your job when you meet with a customer – to reveal a higher value. You do this by taking the time to ask questions and listen to them.

Customers do not have a price barrier; they only have a value barrier. It’s your job to help them get over the value barrier. Never view the value barrier as permanent, it’s always in motion based on the customer’s current needs. Needs change, they always do, and it’s your job to capitalize on the customer’s changing needs. Again, you do this by spending time with them. Let me go back to the iPhone 11 example. So I just bought an iPhone 11, but I wasn’t expecting to pay as much as I did. My needs for a phone changed, though and I paid the price. Yes, my needs could have been met in many other ways and for less money, but my value barrier was broken down and I bought it. I do feel good about the purchase, because of the value it will give me.

Never think for a moment you need to discount your price. Rather, always think about how to increase the value of what you’re offering your customer. When you are working to create value for the customer, remember the value you create is in the customer’s mind, not yours. What you think is valuable, your customer may think is worthless. We all value different things. Let your customer ultimately decide what is valuable to them. Trust me, they will tell you, if you let them do the talking.

Cop yright 2020, Mark Hunter “The Sales Hunter” Sales Motivation Blog.  Mark Hunter is the author of High-Profit Prospecting: Powerful Strategies to Find the Best Leads and Drive Breakthrough Sales Result

How Often Can I Contact a Prospect?

As often as you are able to deliver new insights that your prospect finds interesting, you can contact him/her. Contacting a prospect is never about sending the stupid note that says, “did you see my list email?” or worse yet, “I’m just checking in to see if you’re ready to talk.” Excuse me, but “checking in” is what you do at a hotel, not with a prospect!

What you can’t afford to do in prospecting is fall into the trap of believing if you try to contact them more than a couple of times, you’re bugging them. Or, since they haven’t responded yet, they must be disinterested. Both of these are beliefs you can’t allow yourself to accept. The only belief you can have is one that believes in your ability to help them see and achieve what they didn’t think was possible, and therefore, it’s your responsibility to reach out to them. If you fail to reach out to them, you’re doing a disservice, because you’ll never be able to help them. If you want to be successful with your prospecting, that is the one belief you must carry with you at all times.

How to Simplify Your Prospecting, 5 Steps to Follow:

 

The number of times and the methods of contact you use to contact a prospect will vary based on what you sell, your buyer, and their frequency of purchasing from you. Don’t think that the mode of communication you prefer is the same as your prospects. You may love social media, but that does not mean your prospects do. You might detest email or the phone, but I hate to break it to you, those might be the best tools for your prospects. The key is using multiple tools at different times of the day, multiple days of the week.

The biggest trap salespeople fall into is relying too heavily on social media. LinkedIn is a prime example of a tool salespeople love to use for prospecting. To be very blunt, the active people on LinkedIn fall into the following four categories: salespeople, HR, recruiters, unemployed or soon to be unemployed people. Most other people do not have time to be on social media, because they’re busy working! Unless you sell to one of these groups of people, don’t kid yourself into thinking its where your prospects are. I work with a wide variety of business leads, key decision makers, etc. and the last place they choose to invest their time is on social media.

Let me share with you a sample cadence that I use at the beginning when working with a lot of clients and salespeople. Typically, I start with this framework and then tighten, tweak, and adjust it as both me and the client begin to define the prospect and the specific messaging. Here it is below:

Sales Cadence:

18 Touches over a period of 75 calendar days to include 10 phone calls, 6 e-mails, 2 text messages.

Sample Cadence:

18 Touches / 75 calendar days (45 working days)

1. Day 1: Email

2. Day 3: Phone

3. Day 4: Phone

4. Day 5: Email

5. Day 10: Phone

6. Day 12: Email

7. Day 15: Phone

8. Day 18: Phone

9. Day 21: Email

10. Day 23: Phone

11. Day 25: Text

12. Day 28: Phone

13. Day 32: Email

14. Day 35: Phone

15. Day 38: Text

16. Day 41: Phone

17. Day 44: Email

18. Day 45: Phone

The specific number of leads a salesperson can manage is determined by the amount of time they have to prospect each day. The key is don’t start what you can’t finish! If you can’t work a lead all the way through to the final step, don’t even start. A salesperson doing nothing but prospecting is capable of 100 – 175 contacts per day, depending on the technology tools they’re using. This means that by using this 18-step cadence, a full-time prospecting person should be able to add 10 – 20 new prospects to their pipeline each day.

If you’re only prospecting 3 hours a day, the number of new leads you can drop into your cadence will be no more than 5. The key, regardless of the time you spend prospecting, is to know the amount of time it will take to keep all of the prospects in your pipeline. Do not over stuff your pipeline to start! This is one of the biggest mistakes people make, and then they wonder why they’re not getting any results. It’s simple! They’re not getting them, because they can’t stick with their plan. Remember, the majority of the conversations you have with a prospect will not occur until you get past 10 touches. If you think your prospect will respond to your first email or be sitting by the phone ready to take your first call, you’re wrong. Sorry, but it just won’t happen!

As your leads move through the process, some will fall out and others will begin to engaging. However, for those who get to step 18 in this process with you without any communication, here are the rules:

· If the lead gets to step 18 with no contact, put them aside for 90-120 days and then being the process over again.

· If the lead has no potential and there’s a clear indication that the prospect is not interested, move them to your email list to receive your marketing emails. This is a good way of not letting them fall off the radar completely. Do not plan to put them back into the cadence until there is a reason i.e. something has changed.

· If the lead is in the “working stage” showing potential, work these steps as long as necessary.

· If the lead becomes a client, success!

The key is make sure each message is different. In my next blog, I’ll break down for you what makes a great email, text, voicemail, etc.

In the mean time, if you have not read High-Profit Prospecting, I suggest you do so now. Buy it here!

If you want coaching or your sales team needs more direction and training, I suggest you call or email me immediately. Let’s talk! You can’t wait until late in the year to realize you have a problem. Jump on getting the solution now – that’s the only way you’ll be in a position to have the year you and your team needs.

Cop yright 2020, Mark Hunter “The Sales Hunter” Sales Motivation Blog.  Mark Hunter is the author of High-Profit Prospecting: Powerful Strategies to Find the Best Leads and Drive Breakthrough Sales Result

Monday Motivation Video: Narrow Your Focus to Make Your Sales Quota

You look at your sales quota and see yourself falling short, so you begin panicking and thinking you need to run after every opportunity possible. Your logic says that the only way you can make your number is by chasing anything that moves. Sounds logical, right? Let’s not kid ourselves, we’ve all done it. The problem is that this habit is the best way to ensure you miss your number.

You’ll make your number once you get focused, and that starts with your time. Time is a beast that controls you because there are only 24 hours in a day. Regardless of who you are or what you do, it is impossible to make more time. The only thing within your control is using your time as efficiently as possible. You can only use your time efficiently when you stay focused on doing one thing.

 

 

How many customer requests are you trying to chase in a day? How many emails and calls are you trying to respond to in a day? The sum of these numbers can be overwhelming, but you have to stop and remind yourself that not all of them are created equal. Each demand on your time must address this one question: will spending time on this help me achieve my goal? In this case, the goal is your sales quota. Too often, I hear salespeople claiming to be buried with too much to do, yet they still find time to monitor social media or check the company sales scoreboard to see who has sold something today. Each one of your activities must be preceded with this question to yourself: “Will this activity help me make my sales quota?” I have had salespeople go as far as printing that question and posting it above their computer screen.

Many salespeople I’ve coached have used this simple technique and within a few weeks, discovered an extra 30 minutes to two hours of time for themselves to sell. Think about that for a moment. I challenge you to try it, you have nothing to lose and only your sales quota to gain.

Now let’s talk about getting focused with our customers. Regardless if you’re an account manager or spend 100% of your day prospecting, not every customer or prospect is equal. Let me share one technique for each of these types of people.

First, if you’re the account manager, do not allow the customer to manage you. It is your job to manage the customer. Just because it has been your habit to visit the customer every Tuesday and spend 2+ hours with them talking to anybody and everybody does not mean it’s a good use of time. If you have a set amount of time you spend with a customer, I challenge you to cut it back by 20%. I’ve coached many salespeople on this simple move and initially, they told me that it can’t be done. Something funny always happens and that is, nothing happens! The customer never notices – things still get done and the account executive has just freed up an extra hour or more a week. This same technique translates into other activities.

The extra time you gain can now be spent on opening up new opportunities, in turn giving you more ways to make your sales quota. Remember, no one meets their quota based on the amount of time they spend with a customer. They make their quota based on what they sell during the time they spend with the customer.

If you spend your day prospecting, you narrow your focus by not randomly firing prospecting missiles hoping to hit something. Narrow your focus and only work one type of prospect at a time. I suggest doing this by day or by week. Example, you might have 4 industries you typically prospect, so this means you would take one day a week and dedicate to one specific industry. It’s amazing how much more focused you become when everything you do for a full day is geared to a similar set of issues / opportunities.

You may not be able to dedicate an entire day to one niche, but you can at least dedicate a few hours or a half-day. The key is getting focused to allow you to become more confident. The more confident you are, the faster you’ll become. What an amazing concept – the more focused you are, the faster you move.

Focus is about doing one thing at a time, being focused on that one thing and seeing it through to completion. It’s not what you start that makes a difference – it’s what you finish that matters.

Cop yright 2020, Mark Hunter “The Sales Hunter” Sales Motivation Blog.  Mark Hunter is the author of High-Profit Prospecting: Powerful Strategies to Find the Best Leads and Drive Breakthrough Sales Result

Prospecting is a Conversation, Not an Interrogation

Are you one of the many salespeople who knows they need to prospect but are afraid to? You rationalize away why the prospect you need to call isn’t going to become a customer. Your mind lights up with countless reasons as to why calling the prospect is a bad idea. You settle the argument in your mind by deciding to send the prospect a lame email. Then, you send the email and think mission accomplished. Of course, the email doesn’t generate a response so your mind kicks in and says, “I told you this was not worth the time.”

Did I just describe what goes through your mind on a regular basis? Prospecting is not the big bad evil activity you or anyone else has to dread. Let’s put it into perspective. What you do is not going to create world peace, change the course of mankind, or even get your children to eat more vegetables. Prospecting is a conversation between two parties – that’s it! It’s not complex.

The Mental Block People Have with Prospecting:

Your objective when you’re talking with a prospect is to do just that: have a conversation that leads to a next step. The next step can be as simple as agreeing to the next time you’ll talk, or more robust of a next step if the prospect expresses urgency. We can get tangled up into all types of complex ideas, but let me share just two things you can do to create an engaging conversation.

First, ask a question that your prospect finds relevant to him/her. It’s as simple as asking a question about something that is happening in their industry or with some of their customers. What you don’t want to ask is, “how’s business?” That’s lame – you know it and the prospect knows it. Ask them something that will engage their mind.

Second, listen to their answer and then ask them a follow-up question about their response. Now you’re really engaging them because you’re listening to them! If you do this, you’ll start a conversation. Go ahead and say it, “that’s not hard, I can do that!” Yes, you can do that!

When you have a conversation with the prospect, you’re better able to learn their needs and how you can help meet them. The more natural the conversation, the more information you’ll gather.

It’s the information you learn from the prospect that will allow you to go to the next step and have a second conversation that moves you to closer to a sale. Sales is not hard. It simply starts with a conversation, but don’t forget your role: listen first and ask questions second, based on what’s shared with you.

Take a moment to look back at how you got your best customers and why they’re your best customers. There is a level of trust and confidence between the two of you. If that works for your best customers, don’t you think that’s a great recipe for prospects?

Congratulations on having a job that is all about having conversations with other people! Can you think of anything more fun? That’s why I love sales, and its why I love prospecting. The ability to help others is something I never get tired of, and I know you never will too when you see prospecting as a conversation.

Cop yright 2020, Mark Hunter “The Sales Hunter” Sales Motivation Blog.  Mark Hunter is the author of High-Profit Prospecting: Powerful Strategies to Find the Best Leads and Drive Breakthrough Sales Result

The 6 Myths of Prospecting

Maybe I should call this article, “fairy tales too many salespeople believe.”

In my book, High-Profit Prospecting, I call out 6 prospecting myths. For many salespeople, these are more than myths but instead false facts they want to believe. They want to believe them because they can use it as their crutch, their excuse to not prospect.

Go ahead and blow off prospecting. When you do, you’ll be blowing off any chance of making your number. It’s your decision. With that said, let me share with you the 6 myths from Chapter 2 of my book:

 

The 6 Myths of Prospecting:

1. One and done

2. I’ll prospect when I’m done taking care of my existing customers.

3. It’s impossible to have a dedicated time to prospect.

4. We’ve made it this long without having to prospect.

5. If we provide great customer service to our existing customers, we won’t have to prospect.

6. Only “born” salespeople can prospect.

There they are! Read them and discard from your mind once and for all! Now that you’ve read them, let me blow them up some more to ensure you do not allow them to seep back into the cortex of your brain.

-One and done: what a stupid idea to think by making a single contact to a prospect, you will either have them begging to do business with you or clearly saying they’re not interested. I’ve got kids, so I know what it’s like to have to repeat a message over and over to get someone’s attention. And that’s just to get their attention. Trust me, it takes even more to get them to take action.

-I’ll prospect when I’m done taking care of business. This excuse is used by every salesperson who is afraid to engage with people they don’t know. For some reason, they believe this fear, yet at the same time they don’t think anybody else sees it in them. If you can’t reach out to people you don’t know, get out of sales or at least move your lame self into a customer service role. Whatever it is, do something, but don’t remain in sales! Taking care of existing customers is something we all do, but we cannot allow it to overwhelm our time. Prospecting is a muscle that must be worked regularly. You will never overcome this myth without exercising your prospecting muscle on a daily basis.

-It’s impossible to have a dedicated time to prospect. This is a cheap excuse people use when they realize at the end of the day that they haven’t spent any time working on the top end of their sales pipeline. If you’re committed to do something, you do it regularly and most likely, you do it at the same time. Commitment is a word too many salespeople don’t want to associate with when it comes to prospecting. Don’t use the excuse that your customers are different, or that your industry is unique. Every salesperson can use that bold lie. You make the time by scheduling the time!

-If we provide great customer service to our existing customers, then we won’t have to prospect. Wow, never has there been a bigger myth bought into by new salespeople or startups that have early success. They think because they started off with success, it will be given to them each morning. Dreamer! Early success does not mean there will be long-term success. Regardless of how much business falls into your lap, you have to always work to develop new opportunities. Business that falls into your lap is typically due to something in the marketplace or a change in customer needs or something special you make. Regardless, it’s typically due to something with a finite amount of time associated with it and then, when that time runs out boom, so do the customers. Remember Blockbuster? How about Snapchat? How about Nokia telephones or Blackberry? You must always be cultivating new customers and new markets if you want to sustain yourself.

-Only “born” salespeople can prospect. I didn’t realize we had a genetic breakthrough and could create salespeople at birth. At best, this is a cheap excuse believed by people who are simply scared to do what they need to do. If you believe in how you can help people, you owe it to them to reach out. If you fail to prospect them, you are doing them a disservice! Is that a hard pill to swallow? If it is then it’s because you don’t believe enough in how you can help others. Sales is about helping people, and prospecting is the activity of qualifying people you can sell to.

Are you ready to discard the fairy tales and myths that hold salespeople back? The success you achieve is yours, nobody is going to do it for you, so go out and get it!

Cop yright 2020, Mark Hunter “The Sales Hunter” Sales Motivation Blog.  Mark Hunter is the author of High-Profit Prospecting: Powerful Strategies to Find the Best Leads and Drive Breakthrough Sales Result

Monday Motivation Video: Success in Sales is About Being a Rain Maker, Not a Rain Barrel

In my new book, A Mind For Sales, I talk about how it is your mind that controls the results you get. It’s your mind that impacts and shapes what your customers say and what you hear. However, your success today did not start today; it is a result of how you prepared for the day.

In the 2-minute video below, I break down what you need to do at the end of each week in order to prepare for the week ahead. You have heard me say before, “tomorrow begins today.” I’m a firm believer in this quote, because if you fail to plan, you will find yourself merely reacting to the day. In sales, I call this being a rain barrel. You’re doing nothing more than simply reacting to what happens around you and to you. Sales is about being a rain maker, and to be a rain maker you have to prepare.

One of the problems I see is people making “to-do” lists and going through the day taking care of things. The problem with this is that these “things” are too often activities that create little impact and don’t move you closer to your goals.

Today and everyday, you must be committed to achieving your goals. Rain makers go out and make it happen; they don’t wait for things to fall into their lap. Anyone can be busy. You probably woke up this morning with a list of tasks to complete, but before you do, ask yourself this question: which items on my list are focused on making an impact and moving me closer to achieving my goals? Be brutally honest with yourself. You’ll find far too many items on your “to-do” list are activities of little value. A question I like to ask myself is, “how will this action impact my life 6 months from now?” Again, be serious. I suspect a lot of things you set out to do will actually impact your success 6 months from now.

I want you to measure your success not on what you do today, but on the impact today’s actions will have on your life and the lives of others 6 months from now. Making the transition from focusing on today to six months from now will take time. I suggest you watch the video, focus on your goals, break them down into outcomes, and plan your week accordingly. Don’t be surprised if it takes you several months to master this approach. You’ve been trained to have a “to-do” list – it’s what society and those around us preach. I don’t belabor this norm. I embrace it, as it allows me to be different. It will allow you to be different, too when you focus on the outcome.

My new book, A Mind for Sales, releases March 31. It is 100% on helping you become successful in sales long-term. You’ll want to grab two versions, one to read and highlight and the other to listen to. You won’t be disappointed. Pre-order today!

Cop yright 2020, Mark Hunter “The Sales Hunter” Sales Motivation Blog.  Mark Hunter is the author of High-Profit Prospecting: Powerful Strategies to Find the Best Leads and Drive Breakthrough Sales Result

How Do I Avoid Having to Discount My Price?

You will always find yourself discounting your price if you don’t know the real reason why your customer wants to buy from you. It sounds easy to know why your customer wants to buy from you, but because it seems easy is exactly the reason why it’s so hard.

Stop the Discounting by Increasing Your Value:

 

 

Customers will always pay whatever price you want as long as they believe the value they are getting is greater than the price. The best time to find out what the value is that the prospect is looking for is during the prospecting phase. The worst time is during the close when you’re negotiating price. The reason is simple, the prospecting phase is when you’re developing confidence with the prospect and they’re far more likely to share truth and key details. If you wait until you’re negotiating the price, the customer knows money is in play and they’ll be far more likely to give you obstacles. Watch the video in this blog where I share a real-life situation from my own job where knowing the outcome the customer was looking for allowed me to avoid discounting the price to close a sale.

In prospecting, the big issue many salespeople have is they race to get to the close and miss out on what the prospect says. They don’t hear, because they’re not asking. During the prospecting phase, you need to ask the most questions. Asking questions and having an in-depth conversation is how the prospect builds confidence and will see their need to work with you.  Take whatever the prospect shares with you and reference it in at least one follow-up question. That will allow you to go deeper. If you go deep during the prospecting phase, you don’t have to go deep with a discount to close the sale.

When you learn an insight from the prospect about their need right away, you can greater explore it during the prospecting phase. Then, you will have the information you need to close at full price. We’ve all heard that customers don’t want to be sold, they want solutions. Give them a solution to their need and they will buy. Give them a confident solution to their need and they will buy without hesitation.

Your objective is to assess the last several deals you gave discounting your price and ask yourself if you really knew the outcome your customer was looking for. If you felt you knew, ask yourself how confident you were that it was correct. Too often, salespeople are quick to assume they know their customer’s needs. It’s only an outcome if they say it. It’s only a major outcome if they talk about it in depth  after you ask them questions about it. The more significant the need (outcome) the customer is searching out, the less significant price will be to close the sale.

Cop yright 2020, Mark Hunter “The Sales Hunter” Sales Motivation Blog.  Mark Hunter is the author of High-Profit Prospecting: Powerful Strategies to Find the Best Leads and Drive Breakthrough Sales Result

Mistakes People Make When Building a Prospecting Plan

When it comes to prospecting, it can feel like there are 100 things you have to get right to be successful. Trust me, I get it. I work with companies all the time helping them build an effective prospecting process. There are too many moving parts to even count. Regardless of how complicated or simple the item or service you sell, there are 10 things you must get right.

Watch my video to find out more and read about each one below:

 

 

Here’s my list of the 10 mistakes:

1. Using the same prospecting process for all of your prospects

It’s not different than thinking you can fix any problem in your home with a single tool. Sorry, but it’s just not possible. Quit thinking about your prospects in the same way! It is absolutely essential that you segment each prospect by type and have a different prospecting plan for each one.

2. Having too many prospects in your pipeline

This tip rubs a lot of people the wrong way, especially managers, but I’m a firm believer in it. You’ll have greater success if you have fewer prospects to focus on, rather than a bunch of names. You won’t be able to effectively reach an endless number, no matter who you are. So in order to slim your pipeline down, you need to have a prospecting process that allows you to quickly identify whether or not the prospect is real or nothing more than a suspect.

3. Not following up

Not having the time to follow-up and follow-thru is a direct result of the constant up and down cycle that too many salespeople and even companies find themselves in. Business is slow and the outlook is grim, so it’s all hands on deck in a full out blitz to make calls and prospect like crazy. Does this scenario sound familiar? In the race to fill the pipeline, the game is to contact as many people as possible. However, the problem is that it’s impossible to continually repeat the process of contacting all of those people long-term. I am a firm believer in following the directions on the back of every bottle of shampoo: “Repeat!”

4. Not segmenting your prospects based on who they are and what their needs are

This mistake ties back to the first one on the list. You must be able to segment, and don’t think for a moment it’s around what you sell. Segmenting is about the prospect and the outcomes they expect to achieve. For example, one type of prospect might look to what you’re offering as a way to prevent pain or risk in their business. Another person may look at the same item from you as a way to gain a competitive advantage. This means that your approach and messaging must be different, so what works for one prospect may not work for another.

5. Relying on email as your primary prospecting tool

Email is the lazy person’s prospecting crutch. Far too many salespeople use the excuse that email is the only way to reach prospects. One of the biggest problems you make with this mistake is thinking that just because you read the email, your prospect will too. It’s time to throw that myth out the window!

6. Thinking social media is your answer

This one absolutely drives me nuts! For some reason, there is a belief in the sales world that if you spend enough time on social media, you’ll have all the business you’ve ever wanted. I have one response to that: go ahead and spend all of your time on social media, then come back to me in six months and let me know how your sales is doing. I’ll tell you how they’ll be doing – you’ll be starving! Social media plays a role in the sales process, but it’s no different than the role traditional marketing/advertising plays. Yes, it does help; however, it’s a long-term plan that can take months and years before you will see serious fruit.

7. Not allocating the proper commitment of your time.

Prospecting happens when you engage! Prospecting is not something you do when you don’t have anything else to do. It’s not something you do when you suddenly find yourself without enough customers. Prospecting must be something you do on a regular basis. View prospecting the same way you view showering. You take a shower daily, so prospect daily. Failing to prospect on a regular basis puts yourself in a situation where your sales is constantly in a peak/valley syndrome.

8. Failing to realize your prospects don’t care about you or your company

So, unless you’re somebody famous or you have a product everyone has to have, I hate to break the news to you, but your prospect couldn’t care less. What does this mean to you? It means you need to quit sending out stupid emails or leaving pathetic voicemails that extoll who you are and how great your company is. Your prospects simply don’t care! Your prospect didn’t wake up this morning drooling over the possibility of you calling him/her today.

9. Not making your messages about the prospect’s needs

Nobody cares about what you are offering. Everybody only cares about how they are going to take care of their problems. Show them you’re going to take care of their problems or help them move ahead, and then they will be interested in what you have to sell. Too many prospecting messages are nothing more than short statements of product features. You should focus on delivering short statements that garner interest in what the customer is facing.

10. Failing to realize the telephone is still a great prospecting tool

Sadly, too many salespeople fail to realize that the telephone is still a great prospecting tool. It doesn’t matter how much anyone says otherwise, I will always believe in the power of the telephone for conversation. I run into too many salespeople who, when asked how much time they spend on the phone, respond, “Little to none.” Coming from someone with many years of experience, I’ll tell you that the telephone works when used right.

I have written an ebook on this issue where I dig deeper into each one of these 10 items. I suggest you download a copy and read. It’s called: 10 Reasons Most Prospecting Plans Fail.

Get ready to read my newest book, A Mind For Sales, releasing on March 31. Go here to learn more, and pre-order your copy today.

Cop yright 2020, Mark Hunter “The Sales Hunter” Sales Motivation Blog.  Mark Hunter is the author of High-Profit Prospecting: Powerful Strategies to Find the Best Leads and Drive Breakthrough Sales Result

Monday Motivation Video: Your First Sale of the Day

The first sale you make today and everyday is to yourself. Each one of your sales are built off of this first sale of the day, for one simple reason: your mindset. It’s your mindset that determines how your day goes. You get to choose the day you get to have, don’t allow others to choose it for you.

 

 

When you make the first sale of the day to yourself and embrace the mindset that today will be your day to impact others, it’s amazing what happens. You will move from reacting to your surroundings to actually making things happen. You don’t allow yourself to shut down. Instead, you open up to hear and understand more. The more you hear, the better you understand, and the more you’re able to help. The more you help, the greater the impact you will have.

You can choose to go through life having whatever kind of life you choose. Yes, you read that correctly. It’s your life, and it doesn’t belong to anyone else. Since it belongs to you, I suggest you make the most of it by starting off today and everyday by initially selling to yourself. You should be the first sale. Believe in yourself, believe in what you can do, and believe today will be full of open doors and open conversations.

I am a firm believer in each of us being confronted with numerous opportunities each day; yet, most of us never see them because our mind is closed. If you want to make your sales quota, if you want to turn your prospects into customer and not just one-time customers but long-term customer relationships, then it starts with you. Begin by having a long-term customer relationship with yourself and buying what you have to offer.

Others will never believe in you until you believe in yourself.

Cop yright 2020, Mark Hunter “The Sales Hunter” Sales Motivation Blog.  Mark Hunter is the author of High-Profit Prospecting: Powerful Strategies to Find the Best Leads and Drive Breakthrough Sales Result