Sales Prospecting Temporary Problem?
Posted by: Cheryl Clausen in sales coaching, tags: getting propects, sales coach, sales coaching, sales prospectingIf my clients in the insurance and financial services industries are any indicator then I would have to say every sales manager in the insurance industry must tell every rookie that sales prospecting is something you have to hit hard when you are getting started. However, they also tell those insurance rookies that once you have a client base you won’t have to prospect hardly ever.
REALLY???
If that makes sense then I suppose you believe that if you eat a really great meal on Thanksgiving you won’t have to eat again until the next big holiday meal…
If that were true I wouldn’t have people 15-18 years in the industry begging me to help them get sales prospects because they’ve found buying leads, sending out pre-approach letters, begging for referrals, cold calling, etc. just isn’t cutting the muster and paying the bills. Here they are at a point in their business when they should have financial security with an eye on retirement. Instead they see their revenues falling with little hope for increasing their sales.
Sales prospecting is a necessary process in EVERY business just like the other processes required to operate your business. You either develop an effective process that produces the results you want, or continue to deal with sales prospecting problems. You wouldn’t keep patching the tire on your delivery van if you ran a distribution business hoping it won’t go flat. So, why would you accept an ineffective sales prospecting process?
Sales Prospecting Problems Don’t Go Away Unless You Make Them Go Away
Even if you work REALLY hard in the beginning. You gut it out playing the insane numbers game. Somehow you manage to build a business yet you will always need a sales prospecting process that produces new highly qualified prospects for you without having to work that hard to get them. Once you have a client base you simply won’t be able to work harder at sales prospecting because there won’t be enough hours in the day.
Facts are Facts
Even if you have a huge client base now you will always lose clients through natural attrition:
- Some will move away
- Some businesses will close, some clients will even die
- Plus the needs of others will change
That means if you struggle to attract sales prospects now… the problem won’t go away.
Rather than having good prospects coming to you, you will have to go out and hunt those prospects down.
So, if you think sales prospecting is time consuming when you are starting out and only have a few clients, how will you feel when you have enough clients to keep you busy?
My clients tell me they feel like they are at the end of their rope. They already have a lot of work to do: managing employees, taking care of clients, keeping up with their training and certification, etc. Plus it’s been so long the thought of getting out there again and sales prospecting literally makes their stomachs churn. They don’t want to do what they did to get where they are now the way they did it in the beginning.
Sales prospects don’t magically appear the only way to make them appear is to develop processes and systems that make them appear. And does it in a way that doesn’t require you doing all the work.
I talk about this in “The Blueprint for Increased Sales” and go into the exact details for how to make it happen with my clients.
If getting sales prospects is a challenge then make the commitment to do what you need to do to develop an effective sales prospecting system as soon as possible.
Coach Cheryl
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