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The Value of Good Prospecting

Good prospecting is a rarity. If you prospect well, you can stand out in a way your competitors won't. You'll shorten your sales cycle. You'll get to the point faster with more prospective customers than you have before, and faster than your competitors do. Your ideal customers will be saying, "How can we work together?" rather than, "So what's your price?"

Image by Arek Socha from Pixabay

I've covered what's wrong with prospecting before. And I've also provided a FREE solution. But I have to tell you, the records show that you folks don't click over and follow that free course from someone else who's not associated with me, ie. I have nothing in the game in sending you over there. It's simply great stuff.

The Effective Prospecting Course I Share For Free That No One Gets

Yet almost nobody hits that link.

Why?

Is the idea that you're going to have to learn something, do some work, actually go through a course to be able to prospect well too much? Or did you not see the link because it's at the end of the article? Curious.

Anyway, I signed up for a free accountability program from another sales trainer who I respect. It offers to accelerate your results through the rest of 2022, the final three months of this year. I wasn't struggling, but I do always want to be better. It's been about a week and I've already:

1 - made a new series of videos on effective prospecting, as my daily video content creation per the program

2 - hit a personal best in closing six five figure sales in one day.

And my prospecting & qualifying method, as outlined in this video series, is responsible for a lot of that result.

Here is the playlist. Keep coming back to it because I'll be adding more videos, sharing more prospecting tips. As people have pointed out many times over the years, my stuff isn't some idea, some unproven concept: it's based on trial and error and real results in the sales world over the past two decades. (Man, when I think back to the late 1990s, after I got out of college and was in my first bizdev job, just how little I knew about selling...and that nobody trained me on anything beyond technical features of the products!)

Good Prospecting Training Videos Playlist

 

The first video alone will show you the difference between the spam-a-lot outbound leadgen machine, "throw spaghetti against the wall and hope something sticks" method almost everyone has adopted and something that looks, sounds, smells and is treated differently by the prospect.

Why Is Bad LeadGen So Rampant?

Why do you think it is the automated spamming outreach method is used so often? Is it because "that's what everyone else is doing" and so that must be the way you do it? Is it because people are afraid to be human beings, and want to hide behind that automation? Then you have something to blame, right? Must be the email deliverability. Must be that headline. Must be the message content—too long, or too short. Must be anything but YOU, the person ultimately responsible for your performance.

What if, instead of (Option 1) spamming 1000 attempted connections with automated tools over an afternoon...

...using the same bland and personality-less outreach message aimed at all those undifferentiated people you probably know next to nothing about other than "They are in X industry"...

...you (Option 2) focused on 30 leads you personally pre-qualified, who are likely to be receptive to your message because of where they're at and what situation they find themselves in...

...and your intention was to start a genuine dialogue with them as individuals, not immediately whip your offer out and shove it in their face?

I can tell you from personal experience that the second option, applied consistently and not as a one hit wonder, gets you much better results over time. Just like the results I experienced, closing six high ticket offers in a single afternoon.

It is not because I am such a great salesperson. Or that I always know exactly what to say. It is because I chose my prospects and hence where to put my effort carefully.

You Can Have An Effective Outbound Lead Generation Method In Place Today

Get started on that playlist! Apply what you learn, apply it consistently, and watch what happens.

What if your employer uses the automated mass outreach approach to generate leads for you?

No problem! Use the same methods on the leads that you're given. Filter them quickly. Qualify for those indicators I teach you in the videos to look for that show you this is likely to be a good lead. Follow up using the process I demonstrate.

Just about everyone in the online marketing world whines that "If only I had more leads" they would be so much better off.

This is a lie. A falsehood. Generating increasing quantities of poor quality prospects that lead to no engagement will only waste the time and energy of the front line salesperson.

You don't need more leads.

You need good prosecting in place to bring you a manageable number of better leads you can personally engage with.

This isn't something I've made up. I've been talking about it and building my process for many years.

>> If you're ready for the full version of what is explained here, including Challenger Sale instruction, how you should think as a founder beginning to operate your business, what to give your new hires to train them up quickly on effective selling, then get Sales On Fire <<

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Hard To Sell To?

Hard To Sell To: "Are {Insert Niche Here} hard to sell to?" is a common question I see; it was repeated again on an expert platform I'm a member of this morning.

The truth is that no industry is "hard to sell to."

hard to sell to wrestling block tackle pain hurt

If you are having trouble selling in a marketplace, an understanding of a key problem that niche has that you can fix is what you're missing.

Instead, odds are you're relying on pushing features of the product/service as most salespeople do. But I'll bet you're not even getting that far.

The problem that kills your prospecting process is more immediate.

Why Salespeople Say "This Industry Is Hard To Sell To"

I have trained many, many salespeople. These include so-called veterans with 20 or more years of experience in sales roles. Turned out they existed on soft referrals, though, and when times got tough and they had to start prospecting by phone, they quickly found themselves in trouble.

Two critical steps must be completed before any discussion with a prospect may be had that leads to a sale.

Your first step is to reach a decision maker.

Your second step is to start a conversation.

Most employed "salespeople" don't know how to do these two things.

If you can't reach a DM or start a conversation with them, what chances do you have of making a sale?

Is it any wonder salespeople say it's "hard to sell to" prospects in this niche?

You're not even getting that far—far enough to have a qualifying conversation!

Hard To Sell To: A Symptom of Larger Issues

I discuss these symptoms of a key problem further in this video:

Many large companies I've worked for didn't even have a consistent sales process, or any sales training materials. This is a rampant problem.

You would think sales organizations would have this all figured out, but the truth is they do not.

Customers don't buy because of features. If you want a better process, we should speak.

>> Jason Kanigan is a sales force developer and conversion expert. To book a call with Jason, click here.<<

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How Do I Get More Clients?

A very nice and well-meaning web designer just asked in an expert platform I'm a member of...how do I get more clients?

My response:

You have four jobs to do.

1. Attract/identify leads.

2. Qualify those leads.

3. Convert the qualified leads.

and

4. Fulfill the orders.

Do you have a system for each of these?

4. can lead into 1. with referrals.

Prospecting to Answer 'How Do I Get More Clients'

how do I get more clients - landing big fish

You want as pre-qualified a lead as you can get.

Qualifying is filtering. In or Out, doesn't matter which.

Do you know your numbers?

How many qualified leads do you need to know you'll get a project? This is different for every person or business. For me, I need a very small number of qualified leads to make a sale. For you, it might be different.

How many unqualified leads do you need to get one good qualified lead?

Back out into the activities you need to be doing every day. I'll bet (no offense; so are 99.9% of other people) you're sitting there and hoping stuff will come your way. Maybe spending 30 minutes a day looking for new work. Well that is not enough. Needs to be 70% or more of your time spent prospecting! Guaranteed that your prospecting activity, like everyone else's--mine included--is too low.

How Do I Get More Clients By Filling My Funnel?

Fill your funnel.

Unqualified leads >>> Qualified leads >>> Sales.

Work back from the end result.

How much money do you want to make in a month?

How many sales does that mean you need to make?

How many qualified leads does that mean you need?

And how many unqualified leads does that require you to get?

Now you can see how many conversations you need to be having...you can break this down to every week or every day.

In my business, for instance, and remember my numbers will be different--perhaps VERY different--from yours, I need 1 sale a week.

To get that 1 sale, I need 4 qualified leads to ensure I get that sale. Could be 1 in 2 but let's say 1 in 4 to be safe.

Now the funny bit about my business: while conversion for me is easy, finding qualified leads is hard. There are many tire-kickers and broke people who want my help, but are not mentally or financially in the position to afford it. So I need MANY unqualified leads to get one good one!

Again, your business could be different. So let's say I need 20 unqualified leads to get 1 qualified lead.

This means my revenue plan for the month looks like:
20 x 16 = 320 unqualified leads >>> 4 x 4 = 16 qualified leads >>> 4 sales

320 unqualified leads!

If I sit around, hoping passive marketing does the job, will I ever get there?!

No!

I need to plan out my activities based on:

- Video marketing (Youtube)
- Facebook marketing
- Forum marketing
- Prospecting calls

- Referrals (these are great; the way I set it up, 2 referrals virtually guarantee 1 sale; so these 2 referrals take the place of 80(!) unqualified leads, which I can now subtract from my total)
- Talks to audiences
- Webinars

and whatever other efforts of your marketing plan that you decide to run.

Do You Have An Activity Level That Answers How Do I Get More Clients

The point here is: do you have a plan? Until now, I doubt it.

Almost nobody does.

And do you have a high-enough activity level to support your money target?

Most people do not.

Whether they're a corporate salesperson or an independent business owner...they simply don't have a prospecting activity level that supports their money target.

And then they wonder why they didn't succeed. They were beaten before they began, and terrifyingly they had no idea.

>> Jason Kanigan is a business strategist concentrating on sales and conversion. Book a call with Jason to get a personalized prospecting plan. <<