Fanatical Prospecting: The Ultimate Guide to Opening Sales Conversations and Filling the Pipeline by Leveraging Social Selling, Telephone, Email, Text, and Cold Calling (Jeb Blount)

by Jeb Blount

Here's the brutal truth: There is no easy button in sales. Prospecting is hard, emotionally draining work, and it is the price you have to pay to earn a high income.

So the question is not, to cold call or not to cold call. Instead, the question is how to strategically balance prospecting across the various prospecting channels to give you a competitive advantage when interrupting prospects in the crowded, competitive marketplace.

Desperation magnifies and accelerates failure and virtually guarantees that he won't close the deals he must have to survive.

The 30-Day Rule states that the prospecting you do in this 30-day period will pay off for the next 90 days. It is a simple, yet powerful universal rule that governs sales and you ignore it at your peril. When you internalize this rule, it will drive you to never put prospecting aside for another day.

It is no different in sales. Elite salespeople, like elite athletes, track everything. You will never reach peak performance until you know your numbers and use those numbers to make directional corrections.

“Anything worth doing is worth doing poorly.” I've always believed that messy success is far better than perfect mediocrity.

Just take your annual income goal and divide it by the total number of Golden Hours in each year and you'll find what you are worth per hour. (Annual Income Goal)/(Number of Working Weeks × Golden Hours) = What You Are Worth an Hour

To be successful at networking, refrain from becoming a walking, talking marketing brochure and get it through your thick skull that nobody cares about you or what you have to say. They want to talk about themselves.

The secret: Speak in public, regularly. Public speaking is a powerful method for meeting people and developing business relationships because it creates an environment where prospects seek you out.

I highly recommend investing the time to create and publish original content because the benefits to your reputation and career are massive. But if developing original content is not your thing, an easier way to leverage content is through curation.

No one wants to be pitched. You hate it, I hate it, and prospects hate it. Pitching leaves prospects feeling that you don't listen and makes them feel unimportant. This is the primary reason you face so much resistance getting prospects to give up their time.

What I want to make clear is prospecting messages are not complex. Be careful not to overcomplicate things. Your prospecting message is designed for one purpose: to quickly persuade your prospect to give you their time.

Your prospecting message must be quick, simple, direct, and relevant. The relevant part is the critical element. Prospects are going to agree to give up their valuable time for their reasons, not yours. The lower the risk to them for giving up their time, the more likely they'll be willing to give it up.

Konrath suggests that there are three key parts to a winning VP: Focuses on a business objective that is measured: You'll get their attention when you focus on a metric that impacts their performance. Disrupts status quo: The status quo is powerful. People abhor change and will only move from the status quo when they feel they can significantly improve their current situation—increase sales, reduce costs, improve efficiency, reduce stress, and so on. Offers proof or evidence: When you can provide information about how much you have helped prospects in similar situations, you gain instant credibility.

For example, if you are asking a C-level executive to give up their time, you have to bring a damn good reason for them to do so because their time is incredibly valuable. You'll want to craft a well-laid-out case that is specific and germane to your prospect. For example: “I've helped multiple companies in your market segment reduce time to profitability on new product launches by as much as 50 percent. In fact, Aspen Systems' IDEK SaaS launch was the fastest ramp to ROI in the history of the company. With our system, they made a 41 percent improvement over their last launch.”

On the flip side, if you work for a well-known brand and are meeting with small business owners who regularly use products like yours, asking for a few minutes to “learn more about their business” can work like a charm. Why? Because small business owners like to talk about themselves and the risk of taking a few minutes to meet with you is low.

Mike says your Power Statement must answer: The prospect's issues Your offerings that address these issues Competitive differentiators

For example, just saying, “I'd like 15 minutes of your time because I want to learn more about you and your company” works surprisingly well with many prospects.

To develop a bridge specific to your prospect, you will first need to determine the objective of your prospecting touch: Are you attempting to get more information to further qualify the opportunity, decision-maker role, or buying window? Do you want to set up an initial meeting? Are you seeking an introduction to another person? Defining your objective in advance, so you know what you are asking for, will help you develop a bridge that gives your prospect a reason to take that step.

The primary reason prospecting gets overcomplicated, companies create long moronic scripts, and salespeople beat around the bush with passive “Maybe if it would be okay and if you are not too busy we could kinda maybe get together for a few minutes, what do you think?” statements, is to avoid directly asking, which carries with it the potential for rejection.

The fact is, if you are having a hard time getting appointments, getting to decision makers, getting information, or closing the deal, 9 out of 10 times it is because you are not asking.

Getting past the fear of “no” isn't easy. I've been selling my entire life and have been incredibly successful at it, yet today I still have to remind myself that “no” won't kill me. That, by the way, is the key. You have to teach your rational brain to tell your amygdala, or “reptilian” brain, that the threat isn't real.

Let's begin with a basic premise: The feeling of rejection is real. When a prospect tells you no, your brain doesn't know the difference between the prospect rejecting your proposition or rejecting you. To your brain, it is one and the same.

so true

There is a better way. Rather than attempting to overcome—defeating or prevailing over your prospect—you should disrupt their expectations and thought patterns when they push back with a no. The key is a disruptive statement or question that turns them around so that they lean toward you rather than move away from away from you.

One phrase you want to avoid is “I understand.” When you use the phrase “I understand,” you sound just like every other schmuck who uses this phrase as insincere filler so they can get back to pitching.

The layering of channels to build familiarity is extremely powerful. If you leave an effective voice mail and they hear your name and company name, then when they see your name and e-mail address in their inbox you will be more familiar.

This is why salespeople are the elite athletes of the business world. The employees of your company (even if they don't act like they understand this) count on you for their jobs and paychecks. The owners and executives need you to deliver on your numbers to keep the shareholders happy.