Prospecting is generally not a favourite activity for salespeople. However it is an important and necessary process for sales professionals to become, and remain top performers. Prospecting is the art and science of finding and filling your sales funnel with qualified candidates that have a need for the goods or services you are representing. Thus, you not only have to find these candidates, you have to communicate with them enough to establish two things: a genuine need for your offering and a willingness to meet with you to understand the value your products or services can provide. Without these two conditions being met, you have a suspect not a prospect.

To become an effective prospector, follow these five building blocks:

1. A Winning Attitude
There are always going to be barriers and obstacles in your pathway to success, in every part of your life. You can let those barriers and obstacles defeat you in business and in life or you can adopt a winning attitude that finds ways around those barriers and obstacles.

A winning attitude is an internal confidence that comes from working hard, being prepared and knowing that you will find a way to prevail no matter what situation you encounter. Action International, a global business coaching firm, describes it as making the choice between above the line and below the line thinking. Above the line thinkers take ownership, accountability and responsibility for their actions and become victors. Below the line thinkers use blame, excuses and denial and ultimately become victims of their own making as a result.

In his book “The Psychology of Winning” author Dennis Waitley sums it up as “"There are two primary choices in life: to accept conditions as they exist, or accept the responsibility for changing them."

While a winning attitude is an important life skill, it certainly pays dividends in the prospecting process. It provides you with the drive and motivation necessary to consistently expend the effort and energy to find and engage those new prospects so vital to your overall sales results.

2. Goal Setting
Setting goals is another important component to help guide your successful prospecting efforts. Norman Vincent Peale said, “All successful people have a goal. No one can get anywhere unless they know where they want to go and what they want to be or do.”
Goal setting will help you define not only what you need to do, but how much of it and by when in order to meet or exceed your sales targets. Reviewing your progress against your goals will also let you know whether you are on track or off track with your prospecting efforts. It is also an important first step in creating a prospecting action plan.

In their professional development programs, CPSA talks about the need for all goals to be S.M.A.R.T.:

Specific
Measurable
Achievable
Realistic
Time Bound

As an example, a goal for prospecting may be as follows: To identify and engage 30 new prospects in the next 3 months.

This meets the S.M.A.R.T. criteria and if you know your average length of your sales cycle, conversion rate and average dollar sale it will also help you forecast your possible sales results from new clients. If the results are not what you need to meet or exceed your quota, then you may need to become more aggressive on your prospecting goals.

Next month in Part 2 we will talk about the three additional keys to effective prospecting: targeting, planning and execution.