One of my favorite stories about prospecting happened when AT&T was broken up into the baby bells and their “sales people” experienced their first taste of competition. A vice president of sales was speaking to a large group of sales people. He was going on and on about how they would need to adjust their approach now that they had real competition. They would have to be proactive and go out their and prospect for new business… they couldn’t just wait for the customer’s to call them. He went on for a few minutes until one of the sales people raised his hand and asked, “What’s prospecting!”
When salespeople struggle to achieve their numbers, the first questions I ask are “How are you prospecting?” and “How are you closing?” Through my experience in talking with, observing others as well as studying my own conscience, prospecting can be a very thrilling, anxiety ridden, stressful and empowering experience. It reminds me of exercising, because it doesn’t always sound like fun, but I’m always better for it afterwards.
What does your prospecting experiences remind you of…?
1 response so far ↓
Anne Cloward // June 13, 2009 at 7:51 pm |
Ummm. Reminds me of the days when I spent several months preparing a course for AT&T people on how to write responses to proposals. They kept thinking they should be technical documents and we kept focusing on the response as being a sales documents. Changing corporate culture in such a place was a challenge!