Happy Monday, Sales Pros, I hope all is well wherever you are plying your trade this Monday.

Ah, Prospecting. The bright morning light of Sales. The bracing cold shower. Sure, you’ve heard many tout their beneficial effects, but: “Not for me” is probably the most frequent honest reaction many of us have.

Why:

Yes, while Sales organisations are set up in many different ways, many of us have Demand Generation teams and other aspects of Marketing working for us and delivering leads.

However, Demand Generation is typically carried out by the most junior members of the Marketing team, Quality, quantity and lead flow will vary massively and if you rely on it for 100% of your business, well, you have zero control over it.

Also, and let me ring the experience bell here: At some point the Demand Generation / Business Development machine will not work for you in the way that you would want it to. It will impact your Sales numbers. How long do you think it’ll be before somebody comes along asking what’s not working and why and how come you haven’t fixed it? (Not very long at all has always been the truthful answer for me.)

In addition, you’ll look great talking to Sales leadership about how “Oh yeah, that lead came from my own prospecting.” And you’ll forever get to tell the Dem Gen folks how in addition to your own work, well, you’ve also done a good chunk of theirs.

Most importantly however: There are any number of studies out there confirming that the top performing Sales Pros prospect systematically and consistently. They’re not lying.

Oh, you’ve developed a taste for cold early morning showers now? Great, let’s look into how to do it.

How:

Point number one: Use a method. This makes your activities measurable and repeatable, benefitting yourself. It also makes them easy to explain them to Sales leadership. Most importantly: It makes it easier to ask cold prospects for their most precious resource (their time) when you can state your case in a concise, logical way.

Next: Know your customer.

In order to know who to approach, the easiest way is to see who we’re already successfully or otherwise working with. This is where all that lovely CRM data will come in handy.

• Who are my best customers (shortlist 3 to 5)

• Who are my worst customers (again 3 to 5)

• Which customers are the most profitable (for the business and myself - know your comp plan)

• Which ones are the least profitable (ditto)

This is coming together nicely. Now consider what pain points we helped those customers solve. Many will nod wisely when you tell them this is called account-based Marketing.

I’ll have a final few points on the topic of Prospecting for you on Wednesday, BUT: Get started with the steps lined out above in the meantime.