Introduction: The Art of Prospecting

Selling is fun. Or at least it should be. Winning the deal, working

with people, being on the front lines and clued into what’s

really happening out in the field—it’s fun. Selling is a great

profession.

In any profession, however, there are parts of the job that

people like the most and parts they like the least. In software

development, the most dreaded chore is documentation. In

engineering, it’s detail-drawing specifications. In finance, it’s

the drudgery of the numbers.

The thing most salespeople like least about their profession

is prospecting. In fact, many salespeople hate it. Finding

new leads, cold calling, getting prospects into the sales

pipeline, ramping up the sales funnel—yikes! Most salespeople

know what to do with a prospect once he or she has been

found and qualified, but getting and pursuing those leads

...well, that’s a chore they’d rather avoid.

There is a difference between salespeople who are good at

prospecting—sometimes called rainmakers—and those who

aren’t. The difference is not something you’d suspect. It’s that

the ones who do it well consider prospecting an art and not a

science.

When you treat prospecting scientifically, you’re dealing

in absolutes. There are laws to follow. There are rules you must

work within to achieve a goal or acceptable outcome. There is

stress and pressure to accomplish that single desired outcome

so that you can move onto the next step in the sales process,

with its own single acceptable outcome, and then the next step,

and the next. It means you are always completely dependent

on someone else for success—namely, the prospect.

When you stop pretending that prospecting is a science

and instead treat it as an art—your whole perspective will

change. Formal rules become guidelines and tools. Goals become

multifaceted, with many different outcomes not only

possible but acceptable. Prospecting becomes something that you can control, because you are the artist and this is your

canvas. If you start a work of art and don’t like it, you can stop

what you’re doing and start another one. You can begin an unlimited

number of art pieces to see which ones are best suited

to what you really want to do. There’s no limit to how many

you can begin.

The so-called science of selling is overrated, and it scares

most salespeople to death—because if the steps of a scientific

process are followed correctly you should achieve the predicted

result every time. Whenever a sales call doesn’t work

out the way the scientific process says it should, the failure

must lie with you. The process can’t be fallible, so you must

have screwed up! This isn’t actually stated, of course—nobody

with an ounce of sanity claims to have a system that will

guarantee success with every single cold call. But if selling is

a science, and most of your cold calls don’t result in sales,

then wow, you must be doing something really wrong.

Conversely, by treating prospecting as an art, the pressure

is off. Mistakes are okay. You can develop your own style,

based on some sales principles and tools that are easily mastered.

Knock Your Socks Off Prospecting: How to Cold Call, Get

Qualified Leads, and Make More Money is definitely an art.

We will offer suggestions and give you some quick tools to use

to hone your craft. But remember, the Mona Lisa wasn’t created

in a day, and you aren’t required to become the master of

the prospecting universe overnight. Instead, your aim simply

should be to get better at prospecting. Even a 10 percent improvement

would make a big difference. A 20 percent improvement

would be huge.

And you will get better. In fact, you’re going to knock their

socks off. We promise.

Selling is fun. Or at least it should be. Winning the deal, working

with people, being on the front lines and clued into what’s

really happening out in the field—it’s fun. Selling is a great

profession.

In any profession, however, there are parts of the job that

people like the most and parts they like the least. In software

development, the most dreaded chore is documentation. In

engineering, it’s detail-drawing specifications. In finance, it’s

the drudgery of the numbers.

The thing most salespeople like least about their profession

is prospecting. In fact, many salespeople hate it. Finding

new leads, cold calling, getting prospects into the sales

pipeline, ramping up the sales funnel—yikes! Most salespeople

know what to do with a prospect once he or she has been

found and qualified, but getting and pursuing those leads

...well, that’s a chore they’d rather avoid.

There is a difference between salespeople who are good at

prospecting—sometimes called rainmakers—and those who

aren’t. The difference is not something you’d suspect. It’s that

the ones who do it well consider prospecting an art and not a

science.

When you treat prospecting scientifically, you’re dealing

in absolutes. There are laws to follow. There are rules you must

work within to achieve a goal or acceptable outcome. There is

stress and pressure to accomplish that single desired outcome

so that you can move onto the next step in the sales process,

with its own single acceptable outcome, and then the next step,

and the next. It means you are always completely dependent

on someone else for success—namely, the prospect.

When you stop pretending that prospecting is a science

and instead treat it as an art—your whole perspective will

change. Formal rules become guidelines and tools. Goals become

multifaceted, with many different outcomes not only

possible but acceptable. Prospecting becomes something that you can control, because you are the artist and this is your

canvas. If you start a work of art and don’t like it, you can stop

what you’re doing and start another one. You can begin an unlimited

number of art pieces to see which ones are best suited

to what you really want to do. There’s no limit to how many

you can begin.

The so-called science of selling is overrated, and it scares

most salespeople to death—because if the steps of a scientific

process are followed correctly you should achieve the predicted

result every time. Whenever a sales call doesn’t work

out the way the scientific process says it should, the failure

must lie with you. The process can’t be fallible, so you must

have screwed up! This isn’t actually stated, of course—nobody

with an ounce of sanity claims to have a system that will

guarantee success with every single cold call. But if selling is

a science, and most of your cold calls don’t result in sales,

then wow, you must be doing something really wrong.

Conversely, by treating prospecting as an art, the pressure

is off. Mistakes are okay. You can develop your own style,

based on some sales principles and tools that are easily mastered.

Knock Your Socks Off Prospecting: How to Cold Call, Get

Qualified Leads, and Make More Money is definitely an art.

We will offer suggestions and give you some quick tools to use

to hone your craft. But remember, the Mona Lisa wasn’t created

in a day, and you aren’t required to become the master of

the prospecting universe overnight. Instead, your aim simply

should be to get better at prospecting. Even a 10 percent improvement

would make a big difference. A 20 percent improvement

would be huge.

And you will get better. In fact, you’re going to knock their

socks off. We promise.