7 tips on becoming a prospecting master

Use your calendar

Set aside time for prospecting in your calendar. Your time is valuable and must not be wasted. Turn off and put away anything that may distract you from your prospecting. Put your tunnel vision goggles on! This is your race and only you decide whether or not to finish first place.

Set feasible goals and celebrate success

For example: You have now spoken to 10 people, so you are well worth a cup of coffee and a pastry (but not before!) Two booked meetings mean you have earned an extra break etc. Your goals and progress should be measured based on effort/quantity but also on results.

If the phone is your primary tool

Pro tip: Have a mirror in front of you. This may seem silly but trust me, it works! Look at your face while talking to your potential customers. If you look happy, you’ll sound happy. If you look grumpy, you’ll sound grumpy. Try it and see for yourself! You will get noticeably more positive answers if you sound happy. However, don’t overdo it. There’s a difference between being happy and exaggerating. Exaggerating sounds fake and unnatural and will be very noticeable. There’s a lot of things that can make or break a phone call. Other things to take into consideration is tone of voice and pace, which are two things that some people may need to practice a little more on but are easy to get a hang of pretty quickly.

Scripts

Don’t use one script. Use several. Scripts aren’t just for beginners but for those who strive to become more structured and book more meetings. However, it is important to use the right script for the right type of call, but NEVER read directly from the script. The script is there as a security blanket and for inspiration. If you were to read directly from the script, you might as well record it and have a robot make the calls for you. It’s good to adjust your tone of voice and choice of words. A tip is to record some of your phone calls so you can analyse how you sound. Do you sound like someone who YOU would like to talk to?

Do you sound like someone who you would talk to?

NEVER apologize

How many times have you received sales calls where the caller started with apologizing for taking your time? Probably quite a few times. By picking up the phone the potential customer has already made a choice to talk to you. So, instead of wasting 5-10 seconds apologizing for calling, you can utilize that time to explain why you’re calling and how you can make their life easier.

Why are you calling?

This is in many cases quite a hard question, but a very important one. Have a clear message as to why you’re calling. The person picking up the phone want to instantly know why they should listen to what you have to say. What is it that you have to offer that can make their life easier?

What is it that you have to offer that can make their life easier?

Call 2 action

Keep it short and sweet. Be clear with your message. Don’t try to sell your product if a meeting is what you want out of the conversation. If it is a meeting that you want, then it is the meeting you should sell, not your product/service/solution. Have clear and concise reasons as to why your potential customer should set aside an hour of their time to meet with you. This is how it is – even if they don’t ask right away, they will during the phone call be pondering why they should spend their valuable time on a meeting with you. Give them the answer before they’ve even had time to think of reasons to say no.