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    Is Your Sales Dashboard Showing you the Right Metrics?

    Is Your Sales Dashboard Showing you the Right Metrics?

    Why do I need a Compensation Plan Designer?

    Why do I need a Compensation Plan Designer?

    Variable Compensation and the Gig Economy

    Variable Compensation and the Gig Economy

    7 Step Guide to Building a Profitable Sales Territory Plan (with Examples)

    7 Step Guide to Building a Profitable Sales Territory Plan (with Examples)

    “Look At Our Dashboards”

    “Look At Our Dashboards”

    Introduction to Sales Operations

    US Tech Market Forecast Shows a Best-Case 5% Drop in 2020

    Forecasting in a Time of Uncertainty: Tech Markets

    It’s Time to Re-prioritize Accounts and Re-balance Routes to Market

    It’s Time to Re-prioritize Accounts and Re-balance Routes to Market

    Deal Optimization – Key to Survival

    Deal Optimization – Key to Survival

  • Sales Compensation
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    Sales VP Compensation – Sales Plan or Executive Plan?

    Does the size of our company determine which SPM platforms we should evaluate?

    Does the size of our company determine which SPM platforms we should evaluate?

    What is the Difference Between a Commission and a Bonus?

    What is the Difference Between a Commission and a Bonus?

    How much of our sales team should we include in our President’s Club?

    How much of our sales team should we include in our President’s Club?

    Sales Compensation Plan Templates

    Sales Compensation Plan Templates

  • Excellence
    The 21 Buying Methodologies

    The 21 Buying Methodologies

    New Sales Leader? Avoid these 3 Common Mistakes

    New Sales Leader? Avoid these 3 Common Mistakes

    What’s Your Ideal Customer Profile

    What’s Your Ideal Customer Profile

    A Guide to OKRs for the Sales Ops Leader

    A Guide to OKRs for the Sales Ops Leader

    4 Keys to Successful Sales Management Meetings

    4 Keys to Successful Sales Management Meetings

    Sales Math: The Impact of Discounting

    Sales Math: The Impact of Discounting

    Revenue Operations Holds the Key to Unlocking Growth in 2022

    Revenue Operations Holds the Key to Unlocking Growth in 2022

    Sales Math – Pipeline Principles

    Sales Math – Pipeline Principles

    What’s The Purpose Of A Pipeline Review?

    What’s The Purpose Of A Pipeline Review?

  • Enablement
    The 21 Buying Methodologies

    The 21 Buying Methodologies

    What’s Your Ideal Customer Profile

    What’s Your Ideal Customer Profile

    The 5 Levels of Relationship in Sales

    The 5 Levels of Relationship in Sales

    What’s The Difference Between Sales Enablement And School?

    What’s The Difference Between Sales Enablement And School?

    Training Reinforcement: Is it Back to Business as Usual?

    Training Reinforcement: Is it Back to Business as Usual?

    Give your Sales People what they need!

    Give your Sales People what they need!

    Which Sales Methodology?

    Which Sales Methodology?

    The Rise of Virtual Selling and the Implications for Sales Enablement

    The Rise of Virtual Selling and the Implications for Sales Enablement

    A Sales Enablement Conundrum: Who’s Coaching the Coach?

    A Sales Enablement Conundrum: Who’s Coaching the Coach?

  • Technology
    Data Science and Sales Operations: Driving Greater Predictability Together in Uncertain Times

    Data Science and Sales Operations: Driving Greater Predictability Together in Uncertain Times

    Building a B2B SalesTech Stack for Growth

    Building a B2B SalesTech Stack for Growth

    Does the size of our company determine which SPM platforms we should evaluate?

    Does the size of our company determine which SPM platforms we should evaluate?

    The Boom In Sales Technology

    The Boom In Sales Technology

    Setting your 2021 CRM Enhancement Priorities

    Setting your 2021 CRM Enhancement Priorities

    Do You Really Need Sales Automation?

    Do You Really Need Sales Automation?

    How the New AI – Authentic Intelligence – Can Improve Sales Productivity

    Use Tableau to Track the Virus Through Actionable Data

    Use Tableau to Track the Virus Through Actionable Data

    “You Are Doing Everything Wrong!”

    “You Are Doing Everything Wrong!”

  • Performance
    What to Measure in Sales?

    What to Measure in Sales?

    The Pipeline and Forecast are Different

    The Pipeline and Forecast are Different

    Ignite Your Sales Performance at the Intersection of Purpose and Passion

    Ignite Your Sales Performance at the Intersection of Purpose and Passion

    How Sales Reps Are Hitting Quotas Without Hitting the Streets

    How Sales Reps Are Hitting Quotas Without Hitting the Streets

    Buying Is About People, Why Isn’t Selling?

    Buying Is About People, Why Isn’t Selling?

    The secret to High Performing Sales Teams – Analytics

    The secret to High Performing Sales Teams – Analytics

    Variable Compensation and the Gig Economy

    Variable Compensation and the Gig Economy

    On Measuring Sales Performance

    On Measuring Sales Performance

    “Look At Our Dashboards”

    “Look At Our Dashboards”

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  • Planning & Analysis
    Is Your Sales Dashboard Showing you the Right Metrics?

    Is Your Sales Dashboard Showing you the Right Metrics?

    Why do I need a Compensation Plan Designer?

    Why do I need a Compensation Plan Designer?

    Variable Compensation and the Gig Economy

    Variable Compensation and the Gig Economy

    7 Step Guide to Building a Profitable Sales Territory Plan (with Examples)

    7 Step Guide to Building a Profitable Sales Territory Plan (with Examples)

    “Look At Our Dashboards”

    “Look At Our Dashboards”

    Introduction to Sales Operations

    US Tech Market Forecast Shows a Best-Case 5% Drop in 2020

    Forecasting in a Time of Uncertainty: Tech Markets

    It’s Time to Re-prioritize Accounts and Re-balance Routes to Market

    It’s Time to Re-prioritize Accounts and Re-balance Routes to Market

    Deal Optimization – Key to Survival

    Deal Optimization – Key to Survival

  • Sales Compensation
    • All
    • ICM Tools
    • Incentive Travel
    • Plan Design

    Sales VP Compensation – Sales Plan or Executive Plan?

    Does the size of our company determine which SPM platforms we should evaluate?

    Does the size of our company determine which SPM platforms we should evaluate?

    What is the Difference Between a Commission and a Bonus?

    What is the Difference Between a Commission and a Bonus?

    How much of our sales team should we include in our President’s Club?

    How much of our sales team should we include in our President’s Club?

    Sales Compensation Plan Templates

    Sales Compensation Plan Templates

  • Excellence
    The 21 Buying Methodologies

    The 21 Buying Methodologies

    New Sales Leader? Avoid these 3 Common Mistakes

    New Sales Leader? Avoid these 3 Common Mistakes

    What’s Your Ideal Customer Profile

    What’s Your Ideal Customer Profile

    A Guide to OKRs for the Sales Ops Leader

    A Guide to OKRs for the Sales Ops Leader

    4 Keys to Successful Sales Management Meetings

    4 Keys to Successful Sales Management Meetings

    Sales Math: The Impact of Discounting

    Sales Math: The Impact of Discounting

    Revenue Operations Holds the Key to Unlocking Growth in 2022

    Revenue Operations Holds the Key to Unlocking Growth in 2022

    Sales Math – Pipeline Principles

    Sales Math – Pipeline Principles

    What’s The Purpose Of A Pipeline Review?

    What’s The Purpose Of A Pipeline Review?

  • Enablement
    The 21 Buying Methodologies

    The 21 Buying Methodologies

    What’s Your Ideal Customer Profile

    What’s Your Ideal Customer Profile

    The 5 Levels of Relationship in Sales

    The 5 Levels of Relationship in Sales

    What’s The Difference Between Sales Enablement And School?

    What’s The Difference Between Sales Enablement And School?

    Training Reinforcement: Is it Back to Business as Usual?

    Training Reinforcement: Is it Back to Business as Usual?

    Give your Sales People what they need!

    Give your Sales People what they need!

    Which Sales Methodology?

    Which Sales Methodology?

    The Rise of Virtual Selling and the Implications for Sales Enablement

    The Rise of Virtual Selling and the Implications for Sales Enablement

    A Sales Enablement Conundrum: Who’s Coaching the Coach?

    A Sales Enablement Conundrum: Who’s Coaching the Coach?

  • Technology
    Data Science and Sales Operations: Driving Greater Predictability Together in Uncertain Times

    Data Science and Sales Operations: Driving Greater Predictability Together in Uncertain Times

    Building a B2B SalesTech Stack for Growth

    Building a B2B SalesTech Stack for Growth

    Does the size of our company determine which SPM platforms we should evaluate?

    Does the size of our company determine which SPM platforms we should evaluate?

    The Boom In Sales Technology

    The Boom In Sales Technology

    Setting your 2021 CRM Enhancement Priorities

    Setting your 2021 CRM Enhancement Priorities

    Do You Really Need Sales Automation?

    Do You Really Need Sales Automation?

    How the New AI – Authentic Intelligence – Can Improve Sales Productivity

    Use Tableau to Track the Virus Through Actionable Data

    Use Tableau to Track the Virus Through Actionable Data

    “You Are Doing Everything Wrong!”

    “You Are Doing Everything Wrong!”

  • Performance
    What to Measure in Sales?

    What to Measure in Sales?

    The Pipeline and Forecast are Different

    The Pipeline and Forecast are Different

    Ignite Your Sales Performance at the Intersection of Purpose and Passion

    Ignite Your Sales Performance at the Intersection of Purpose and Passion

    How Sales Reps Are Hitting Quotas Without Hitting the Streets

    How Sales Reps Are Hitting Quotas Without Hitting the Streets

    Buying Is About People, Why Isn’t Selling?

    Buying Is About People, Why Isn’t Selling?

    The secret to High Performing Sales Teams – Analytics

    The secret to High Performing Sales Teams – Analytics

    Variable Compensation and the Gig Economy

    Variable Compensation and the Gig Economy

    On Measuring Sales Performance

    On Measuring Sales Performance

    “Look At Our Dashboards”

    “Look At Our Dashboards”

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Home Performance

Prospecting Is Not An Event!

David Brock by David Brock
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Prospecting Is Not An Event!
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We get so much about prospecting wrong. We reach out to people who are far outside our ICP, people we should never be talking to, wasting our/their time.

We contact other prospects, only to pitch our products and services, ending with, “Are you interested, can I invite you to a demo.”

We don’t do our homework, we don’t understand the customer, their challenges or where they might be interested in helping.

RelatedPosts

What to Measure in Sales?

The Pipeline and Forecast are Different

Ignite Your Sales Performance at the Intersection of Purpose and Passion

How Sales Reps Are Hitting Quotas Without Hitting the Streets

We inundate prospects with email after email, call after call, LinkedIn messages, texts, everything. We believe “volume” is the path to prospecting success.

And every once in a while, someone may be interested, they say, “Tell me more….” We send content, we invite them to a demo, we put them in our qualified pipeline.

We tend to treat prospecting as an event. We want that one call, where the customer responds, and then says tell me more.

Even if we do that very well, we miss so much opportunity. The only people that are interested in a call are people who have thought somewhat about the problem and may be interested in doing something. Or they’ve already reached out through our web site, generating a lead for us to prospect. Our objective is to get a Yes/No, if we get a No, we move on to the next call.

The reality, is our prospecting should be the start of a series of conversations. Our prospecting has the possibility of addressing a far greater audience, not just those who are already on a buying journey. We have the opportunity, through our prospecting, to incite a customer on a buying journey.

We need to think of prospecting as not just a single call where we get a Go/No-Go response, but as a series of calls where we teach and learn from the customer, where we incite them to change. It’s never a single conversation (unless they are already very late in their buying cycle). It’s a series of conversations, complemented by outreach through complementary channels (web sites, conversations with other customers, relevant content).

Our prospecting/engagement strategies really have to be adjusted. We need to be thinking of a series of collaborative discussions, long before the customer has realized they need to change and committed to that change. Again, there is no “event” that gets the customer to think about a buying journey, but it’s a series of conversations and experiences.

But the payoff is tremendous, we create many more opportunities than we might discover otherwise. We can get a higher response/engagement rate, because we are not focused on “are you ready to buy,” but getting them to think about their goals and how best to achieve their goals.

Are you ready to engage the customer in a prospecting journey?

Tags: ProspectingSales Management
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David Brock

David Brock

Dave has spent his career developing high performance organizations. He worked in sales, marketing, and executive management capacities with IBM, Tektronix and Keithley Instruments.

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