4 Simple Steps To Sales Prospecting

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Here’s a recap of everything in this episode of 5 Minute Sales Training:

You’re here for four simple steps to sales prospecting.

Well, what if I told you I can do better than four and boil it down to one, simple strategy when it comes to successful sales prospecting.

I ran a poll on LinkedIn recently and I just asked salespeople, “How do you prospect?”

The number one response was social media.

I’m a business owner, so I’m getting pitched all the time.

I constantly have salespeople reaching out asking me how they can help. Only, they’re not actually asking me how they can help.

They’re telling me how they can help.

Typically, the message goes like this…

It’s going to tell me how I can 10X my business or redo my website. You get the idea.

Now, what’s wrong with all of this?

What’s wrong with the approach of let me tell you how I can help?

Well, there were a couple of things.

The first is that it’s about their solution, but it’s not about my problem.

How inclined am I at that point to say, “Yes, please tell me all about your solution,” even though you don’t know what my problem is.

But the other issue that I have is that it is so often a single-pronged approach.

The key to successful prospecting is a multi-pronged approach. Zig when others zag.

Here’s my multi-pronged approach to prospecting. It’s four simple steps to zig when everyone else is zagging.

  1. Send a handwritten note. A handwritten note.

Do you know how rarely people get handwritten notes?

But in that handwritten note, you set the expectation that you’re going to call them in a couple of days.

Let the customer know up front that you’re going to call them.

  1. Send an email the day after they received the handwritten note.

“Hey, if you need me in the meantime, here’s how you can contact me. Otherwise, I look forward to our call.”

  1. Make the call.

And in that phone call, so important to say, “I just want to take two minutes to see if I can help. But if not, I’m not going to waste either of our time.”

Let your prospect know that you respect their time.

  1. Use social.

You can complement something that the prospect is doing (genuinely). Send something that would be interesting and of value to the prospect.

Then start your follow-up cycle.

This is not some sort of magic formula. I’m not even saying that what I just described is the right and only way.

Zig when everybody else is going to zag.

If you want to stand out, don’t do what everybody else is doing. You’re better than that. You can do better work than that.

The multi-pronged approach to sales prospecting.

Learn more to earn more.


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About the Author: Jeff Shore

Jeff Shore is the Founder and CEO of Shore Consulting, Inc. a company specializing in psychology-based sales training programs. Using these modern, game-changing techniques, Jeff Shore’s clients delivered over 145,000 new homes generating $54 billion in revenue last year.