Article 101

In this issue:
- 2 common prospecting mistakes that doom you to commodity land.
Lot of effort. Little results. So unnecessary.

Why do so many insist on working so hard for so little?

Does this "selling" process sound familiar? Cold call, call, call, call, call... to get a decision-maker to pick up the phone.... Then offer to send a proposal during the first conversation. Invest time preparing the proposal; send it, then... call, call, and call, call, call, call, call, call, call, and call, more and more... to follow-up and get a yes, no or commonly "maybe" or "call me back."

Some call this selling. I call this "it's only a matter of time until you want to shoot yourself."

This approach.... You can't call it a process because not enough thought went into it... dooms you to typically lower-volume, higher-turnover type accounts. Why?

1. More about needs of caller than callee.
2. No questioning approach to discover needs of decision-maker.
3. **** Big one here - listen up. THE PROPOSAL IS TREATED AS AN
EXPLORATION, RATHER THAN A CONFIRMATION.
4. Calling back a dozen times to get an answer is a sure path to frustration and low results. Frankly, only the lowest level salespeople without knowledge of lower effort, higher conversion to close strategies, sell this way.

The 2 big prospecting mistakes?
Moving to the proposal stage too early. Treating the proposal as an exploration.

Are you making the same mistakes?

That's it.

Best wishes with your sales and marketing,
Scott Channell

copyright 2006-2009 scott channell

Article 83	2 common prospecting mistakes.
	by Scott Channell