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

Being a more efficient and effective prospector begins and ends with an organized, targeted prospecting list.

The quality of list you work from during each prospecting block has a more significant impact on the success of the block than any other element except your mindset.

When you build powerful lists, you get powerful results.

Use these elements in combination to structure your prospecting lists for maximum impact. Prospecting objective: set an appointment, gather information, close the sale, build familiarity Prospecting channel: phone, e-mail, social, text, in person, networking Qualification level: highest qualified at the top of the list—least qualified at the bottom of the list Potential: largest opportunities at the top of the list—lowest potential at the bottom of the list Probability: highest potential probability to achieve your objective at the top of the list—lowest probability at the bottom of the list Territory plan: day of week, postal code, street, geographic grid, city Inbound leads Conquest prospects Decision maker/stakeholder role Industry or market vertical Customers that purchase a specific type of product or service Seasonal customers Inactive customers Leads from a recent trade show or conference

There will only be a handful of prospects in your database at any given time that are in the buying window, and you've got to get in front of them before they buy or the window of dissatisfaction from a trigger event dissipates. Start each morning with a prospecting block focused on a list of these top-of-pyramid prospects while you are fresh, feeling your best, and motivated.

Once you have exhausted your high-potential prospects, focus your prospecting activity on qualifying and nurturing activities with conquest accounts.

If each day you start at the top of the pyramid and set quality appointments early, you will have time left over to systematically qualify the other prospects in your database moving them to the top of your pyramid. Over time, you'll experience more successful prospecting blocks, a dynamic prospect database, and a full pipeline.

The most expensive thing you can do in sales is spend your time with the wrong prospect.

There is no weapon or tool in your sales arsenal that is more important or impactful to your long-term income stream than your prospect database.

Your CRM is the most important tool in your sales arsenal because it: Allows you to manage the details and tasks related to many different contacts without having to remember everything. Keeps you organized, manages your pipeline, and saves your deals and relationships from getting derailed. It makes life easier by doing work for you. Allows you to segment and sort your prospect database and build prospecting lists based on any field or group of fields in the database. This makes you exponentially more effective and efficient in your prospecting activities. Helps you systematically qualify prospects so that you move them up the prospecting pyramid.

Here's the truth about the CRM: If you don't own it, you will never reach your true earning potential.

Owning it means applying the CEO mindset we discussed earlier. It means: Being accountable for maintaining the integrity of your prospect database. Not waiting until your manager is screaming at you because you haven't updated a record in a month. Taking time to make copious notes following sales calls and logging those calls. Putting new leads in the system rather than carting around a pocket full of business cards you've collected from prospects. Rather than sitting around whining about how you don't understand the CRM, taking the time to learn it through trial and error and online learning tools.

Gathering information and qualifying is where managing and building your database really pays off.

You'll know the key decision makers and influencers, what your prospects buy and how much, who your competitors are, potential trigger events, and most importantly, when the buying window opens.

When it comes to building a powerful prospect database, my philosophy is simple: Put every detail about every account and every interaction with every account and contact in your CRM. Make good, clear notes. Never procrastinate. Do not take shortcuts. Develop the discipline to do it right the first time and it will pay off for you over time.

The more familiar a prospect is with you, your brand, and/or your company, the more likely they will be to accept and return your calls, open your e-mails, accept a social media connection request, respond to a text message, accept an invite to an event or webinar, download information from a link you sent them, engage in sales conversations, and ultimately do business with you. That's the Law of Familiarity.

The lack of familiarity is why you get so many objections to your requests for your prospects' time. When prospects don't know you, it's much harder to get in the door.

five levers that helped them build familiarity over time.

The first step in creating familiarity is through persistent and consistent daily prospecting.

Simply put, the more you prospect, the more familiar you become to your prospect base.

The most powerful and direct path to familiarity is a referral or introduction. The referral gives you instant credibility because you get to ride on the coat tails of a person who is already trusted by your prospect.

There are three basic types of referrals: Customer referrals come from happy clients that trust you. The key to generating these referrals is developing a disciplined, systematic process for asking for referrals. Personal referrals come from friends, family, and acquaintances. These are people who know you and are willing to send prospects your way. Take time to educate your personal connections on what you do and your ideal prospects so they know what to look for. Then (this is critical), keep reminding them so they don't forget about you. Professional referrals come from relationships you've developed with other professionals in related industries or with salespeople who may call on the same type of prospects but don't compete with you. These are typically mutually beneficial relationships. To generate these referrals, you must seek out, form, and make an ongoing investment in these professional relationships. The wider your professional network, the more referrals you'll generate.

The real secret to generating referrals is: Give a legendary customer experience. Ask.

It's relatively easy, low key, and low risk to ask a happy client for a referral. It goes like this: “Patricia, thank you again for your business. I'm glad to hear you are happy with us. I'm working hard to add more customers like you. Would you be able to introduce me to other people in your network who might want to use our product?”

There are opportunities to network in your community or in your territory every week. The first place to check with is the chamber(s) in your territory. Then Google or Bing the calendars of other business and civic organizations in your area. Finally, ask your prospects and customers which events, conferences, and trade shows they attend.

networking is the real social prospecting.

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.

You don't go to networking events to sell. You are not there to set appointments, get leads, or close business. You are there to ...

Maya Angelou said, “People will forget what you said or did, but they will always remember how you made them feel.”

Familiarity is also built through personal branding—making a direct investment in improving the awareness of your name, expertise, and reputation.

people buy you.

There is, however, a personal branding methodology that is so little used, I consider it a secret weapon in the war for familiarity. It has an extraordinary track record for producing results and creates instant familiarity, credibility, and leads. The secret: Speak in public, regularly.

Speaking allows you to showcase your knowledge. It also gives you tremendous visibility and credibility. And because so few of your competitors do it, it will set you apart, enhance your personal brand, and create a greater sense of familiarity with your prospects.

Like everything in sales, building familiarity is about balance. You've got to balance the need for sales today with an investment in the future.

Sales is a blend of art and science. The art is influencing people to make commitments. The science is influencing the right people.

I believe that for the sales profession, social media is the most important technological advancement since the telephone. There has never been a time in sales when so much information about so many buyers was so easy to access. And not just contact information, but context. Through the social channel, we gain glimpses into our prospects' behavior, desires, preferences, and triggers that drive buying behavior and open buying windows.

The social channel enhances, elevates, and sometimes accelerates your prospecting efforts. It certainly impacts familiarity. But it is not a replacement for focused and deliberate outbound prospecting efforts.

Social selling is not selling.

social prospecting is about nuance, tact, and patience.

On which social channels should you be active? Where should you invest your limited time? The simple answer: Go where your prospects hang out.

Take a step back and answer these two questions: On which social channels will I find my customers and prospects? On which social channels do I feel most comfortable?

For most salespeople, though, LinkedIn will be the primary social channel. First, you need to have a presence there because LinkedIn is the social channel for professionals. Second, if you are in B2B or high-end B2C sales, LinkedIn is where your prospects hang out. Third, LinkedIn has a robust set of tools and capabilities that are designed for salespeople and will help you across all of your prospecting channels.

You must learn to use social media the right way so it is a good use of time. Efficient and effective are the name of the game. Your time investment in the social channel must be focused on increasing the size and viability of your pipeline. Otherwise, you're just wasting it.

Here are two questions you must constantly be asking yourself as you engage in social prospecting: Does my presence online support my efforts to build my reputation as a sales professional who solves problems and can be trusted? Does it help people become familiar with my name and brand in a positive way?

In the virtual world, however, you have zero chance of changing first impressions that are made about you online. When potential customers view the “online you” and don't like what they see, they just move on.

I'm constantly shocked at the shameful way some salespeople manage their social media image. The most common mistakes are: Poorly written profiles Incomplete and outdated profiles Unprofessional photo or no photo Extremely opinionated political or religious postings and discussions TMI—too much information about personal issues

Ensure that you have a professional headshot on all your profiles—including Facebook.

A best practice that I highly recommend is posting the same headshot on all of your social media profiles. Your image is like your logo. You want it to stick.

Personal branding expert William Arruda says that “an effective LinkedIn summary makes people want to know more about you and, ultimately, connect with you one-on-one.” This is also true of the “about you” and bio sections on each of your social media profiles. You can go long form on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Google+ and get creative with short and sweet descriptions on Twitter and Instagram.

Put your contact information, including phone, e-mail, and website on your social media profiles.