Prospecting Consistency – The Key to Success in Sales

You can’t be truly successful in sales unless you prospect consistently. Many people will disagree believing that as long as they get their number by the end of the quarter or the end of the year it doesn’t matter when it comes … or how it comes … or at what expense.

The struggling salesperson makes a lot of calls one day but then gets wrapped up chasing one or more deals and then doesn’t prospect for a few days or weeks. They are busy writing a proposal that is “critical”. Or they are engaged in solving a problem for a client (which they personally just HAVE to handle) or they are catching up on some paperwork. And there is always a golf outing to attend. Whatever the excuse (and they are ALL excuses) prospecting is sporadic at best and the pipeline ends up having some major holes in it. For a three month sales cycle, lack of prospecting in April leads to lack of sales in July and there is very little you can do about it in July to fix it. The optimal salesperson® prospects every day and, no matter what is happening, does not a let a week go by without hitting their prospecting numbers. They realize that like a tomato farmer who can’t harvest in July what he didn’t plant in April they can’t close in July what they didn’t add to the pipeline in April. Even if the struggling sales person is successful in pulling a rabbit out of a hat at the end of the quarter time after time, it takes a toll. He will attract lots of adult supervision by his manager, he will be under constant stress personally, and his family will feel the effects of his lack of consistency as he has to spend extra time selling and be unavailable to them. Or worse, they will feel the stress.

The Optimal Salesperson® realizes that prospecting has a very high priority every day and every week no matter what else is happening. She realizes that the early part of the sales cycle doesn’t actually take that much time. The initial call to set up an appointment, even if it is a cold call, will only last a few minutes. The calls that don’t connect take a minute or less. So even 30 calls that only connect with 5 people should only take a couple of hours per week. No one is so busy that they can’t find a couple of hours per week. One trick is to do the prospecting first then fit the other stuff in around it. Everyone knows that proposals and paperwork fill up whatever time you give it. So give it less time. Success in sales is achieved by consistent daily activity not wild periods of activity interspersed with long periods of prospecting dormancy. So prospect consistently. Remember, nothing less than your family’s standard of living depends on it.