When I ask sales people about the quantity of prospects they pursue, I usually hear “500” or “I don’t know – I just knock on doors when I’m in the field and have a few minutes.” Neither of these extremes are good answers for effective outbound calls (emails, phone calls, personal visits, text messages, and social media direct messages). Let’s examine these two answers:
- 500. If you have 500 prospects, then you’re not making impactful touches. In today’s world of prospecting, the most important objective is to become known as a subject matter expert. You do this by educating your prospects while you’re calling on them. It’s hard to educate anyone by leaving a nine-second voicemail of “This is Chris with Vector Firm. I’ll be in your area next week and would like to stop by to introduce myself and learn more about your security needs.” Successful outbound calls take time today.
- I don’t know. This answer usually means “I don’t prospect”. I don’t think they’re lying to me, but they’re reflecting on a day three years ago when they dropped a card off at a new construction site as they were driving to an appointment. Randomly dropping off a card is like playing the lottery. Successful outbound calls tale repetition.
Educating your prospects during your outbound calls takes time and repetition. Outbound calls that educate prospects take preparation, delivery and combined methods. Most low voltage companies should be calling on their prospects every four to twelve weeks (depending on their markets). You don’t have the time to touch 500 prospects effectively, and you can’t have repetition with randomness.
Today, the best prospectors have a list of targeted prospects that they pursue on a consistent basis. The first step is understanding how many you can handle. We’ve created a worksheet that will calculate the number of prospects that you can effectively handle.
