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Brian's
Introduction
By
Brian Walsh (Founder & CEO of
Entrepreneur.co.za)
Prospecting is what selling is all about. Of
course, closing is very important too, but if
you don’t have any prospects to close, then you
aren’t making sales anyway!
Prospecting is about finding potential clients
to buy your product. It’s often referred to as
‘generating leads’, and it can be a most
ineffective undertaking if you are not
approaching the right people. You need to
‘qualify’ your prospects as an essential part of
the prospecting process.
Prospecting is the most arduous and
time-consuming aspect of selling. However, what
amazes me is that many sales people spend only
about 20 percent of their time (often less)
prospecting. I know it is not always a
pleasurable practice, but it is crucial to the
wellbeing of your business. You need to have a
large 'feeding pot' of prospects to sell to –
the larger the number of prospects in your pot,
the better.
Let’s say you have a pot with 100 prospects in
it – these are 100 prospective clients who are
the right people (part of your target market) to
potentially buy your product. Now you go about
selling to them – ‘chasing the close’. One out
of every 20 of these people buys, so you’re
happy to have four sales in every 80 of your
prospects. Now your pot has only 20 prospects
left - big mistake! You need to spend a chunk of
every day filling your pot. Never let it run
empty.
So, you have to make sure you dedicate a good
chunk of time every day to prospecting. Keep
your pot full regardless of how well things may
seem to be going – make sure you are always
filling up your pot.
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