Getting yourself into the habit of making those prospecting calls today and every day.  Not putting them off until later is the key.  Now let’s take a look at the next two steps of successful prospecting In the last blog, we discussed the first step of prospecting…Do it and do it some more!  .  Let’s talk about beyond picking up the phone.

In prospecting, Attitude is 90% of everything!  Your results from those prospecting calls will be in a direct relationship to your attitude.  Don’t fall into the trap of waiting for your attitude to improve before you begin making those calls.  Attitude affects behaviors and behaviors affect attitude.  If your prospective client gets even a hint that you are in a hurry or being needy – if your client thinks you are being superior or challenging, you can bet your bottom sales dollar that you have just turned him off on the sale.  Be a listener, be helpful, make suggestions that he can turn around to believe they were his ideas.  The trick here is to come across as the potential solution, not as one of those pesky sales people that call every time he is in the middle of something important.  Remember that along the road to sales success, there needs to be a relationship between you and the client…and it is up to you to come across as the kind of person with whom your client would wish to have a relationship.

Going hand in hand with that relationship building is what we like to call the never let them see you coming approach!  Again with the attitude!  A lot of salespeople will leave messages, send e-mails and continually come up with excuses that are disguised as efforts they classify incorrectly as “prospecting”. You might think, “I’ll send some mail before I call, if they are interested they will call back. I’ve sent several e-mails and left messages but they haven’t called back yet.” Attitude counts here. Your goal is contact not activity. Statistics tell us that to reach a decision maker it takes on average 5-7 attempts. Never leave a message until you made 7 attempts. Try calling at different times of the day, on different days of the week, ask the gatekeeper for more info, but never leave a typical sales message. If you look like a salesperson, act like a salesperson, and sound like a salesperson, then you be treated like a salesperson!  Try to remember that, while you are a salesperson, you need to come across in both your messages and emails in a manner that says, “Oh, it’s Charlie!  I would like to talk to him about thus and so.”  There’s two important points in there:  Oh, it’s Charlie – he’s happy to hear from you, and I’d like to talk to him – he thinks he has a reason to want to call you back! Your attitude in your messages has set a positive stage for his attitude and you chances of him returning your calls will go up like a rocket!

It’s all about relationship building!

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