Defining Sales Prospecting

Let’s try a mind experiment.

In the last three weeks I have been asked about sales prospecting several times. Must be spring.

My definition is that sales prospecting is a technique to spend two to five minutes to discover if someone would like to buy your offering.

Do it wrong and of course they will say, “Go away, boy, you bother me.” So to be valuable, this is a behavior that gets more wins than losses. I have been doing it for years and generally get somewhere north of 75% satisfaction.

We’ve already done that in our Five Step Prospecting Script, available elsewhere, but let me take a minute to describe what successful sales prospecting accomplishes, instead of how to do it, in the hope that we will learn a new way from our readers in the comments to this post.

1. Most important, we want the other person to really focus on whether they want to purchase what we are offering.

2. So before that, we want them to know what we are offering. Figure on a minute or less to have them understand enough to form a desire to acquire.

3. We also want to create an internal condition (theirs, not ours) to take action as quickly as possible.

4. Finally, we want to reward ourselves by satisfying ourselves the other person is buying everything they can.

All of this in five minutes or less, and the people you are playing with have to be having a good time, so in a group situation, others will play.

What are your ideas for how I can accomplish this? Please comment.

Thank you,