Prospecting, deriving its origin from the act of mineral exploration, is an activity that seeks to determine whether something profitable can be gained from a prospect. By identifying the right prospects beforehand, prospecting maximizes the time you will spend in cold calling, ensures that you get high quality calls, and creates a huge impact on your return of investment – in other words, your time!

Most modern-day telesales professionals do not seem to realize the impact of prospecting on their overall sales results, that’s why it is ignored by so many. By disregarding this important activity, telesales professionals miss a lot of sales opportunities by turning the art of cold calling into a hit-and-miss affair.

Prospecting has evolved into a science that never fails to produce predictable yet excellent results. If you want to make the most out of your call list, you have to follow a system that is guaranteed to work effectively.

The aim of this chapter is to provide you with an effective prospecting system to help you explore for the “gold” in your calling lists!

(1) Be Prepared

Prospecting is a challenging activity and the degree of your success will hinge on your preparation. You should fully know and understand your products and services and be ready to answer questions about their applications and uses – as well as their features and benefits, too. You should also know your target market. Being acquainted with the type of people who will buy what you’re selling helps a lot in assessing your prospects. Knowing who your competitors are as well as what strengths and weaknesses they have, is also a valuable commodity for when you’re positioning yourself in front of your prospects.

(2) Schedule your Prospecting Sessions

Prospecting should be part of your daily routine. Set aside at least one hour each day to look for prospects with the right profile. Mark it down, as one of the top priorities of the day and you will resist the tendency to put off this important activity. To help you accomplish your daily prospecting sessions without fail, incorporate it into your time management system and then do it! Every day.

(3) Maximize your Calls

If your prospecting sessions last for only one hour each, maximize your time by making as many calls as possible. This also increases your chances of making more money in the long run, obviously. Before you start making the first call, eliminate all sources of distraction and set your desk phone to Do Not Disturb; prospecting requires your full and undivided attention. Turn the computer off, shut off the iPhone and all its cool Apps, and focus, focus, focus on identifying prospects who are receptive to your message, whilst disposing of the wrong ones quickly to enable you to move onto the viable conversation.

At a certain point, you will find your rhythm and each call you make will be better than the previous one.

(4) Be Brief and Concise

Make your calls as brief as possible. Give a short introduction, highlight the features and benefits of your product or service, and understand the customer’s needs so you can give a value proposition. All these things should be accomplished within 4-5 minutes, tops! The shorter your prospecting calls, the better. Why? Because you can make more calls within your prospecting hour, obviously. Be concise and to the point and talk with efficiency. Your prospects will actually prefer it that way, too!

Remember what the objective of your prospecting call is. What are you looking to accomplish? The green light to send some information through via email, or snail mail? A day and a time to call them back for a more in depth chat, perhaps after they have checked out your website? Or maybe you’re setting face-to-face appointments to go on over to their place of business and pitch them the good, old-fashioned way!

(5) Prepare a List

We went over this a little in the last chapter. Calling data, more usually described in this rock n roll business were in as ‘Leads’, are the lifeblood of every sales professionals prospecting sessions. Look to prepare a list of names or companies that would last for about a month at any one time. This way you do this little task only once every four weeks or so, meaning you can focus on the more important things – like prospecting and selling!

Having a list like this helps you organize your prospecting sessions and keeps you focused in meeting your goals. You can get lists from the internet, list brokers, or from a local business publication. Such lists are basically free, but you’ll no doubt have to spend a great deal of time weeding out the names that are not worth your time – or, get someone else to do it for you! Start building your own cold call list database if you want to stay ahead of the competition., and update it as and when you can – but, always on a regular basis.

(6) Prospecting During Off-Peak Hours

Sometimes things don’t go very well with conventional prospecting times so try to improvise by calling during off-peak hours. Decision makers, especially the workaholic types, usually work during off-peak hours. They don’t expect calls between 8:00 am and 9:00 am, between 12noon and 1:00 pm, and between 5:00 pm and 6:30 pm, so when you call within these times be prepared to talk when decision makers answer the phone – their secretaries and assistant probably wont even be in the office at these times.

Prospecting during off-peak hours can be a supplemental effort to your normal prospecting time or you can switch your entire prospecting time to off-peak hours, whichever is effective. I’ve done both in my career and they have served me both well – although I admit, I did become more of a lover of the Off-Peak prospect calling missions – just enjoyed catching the ‘big boss’ off guard! You can also vary the time of your calls if you can’t reach certain prospects at a particular time. If you fail to connect to the prospect after several attempts at a particular time, try calling on other days or on any other time during the day.

(7) Be organized

As I mentioned earlier, having a list serves as a guide that helps you keep organized in your prospecting sessions, but you need a sophisticated tool if you want to keep track of all of your prospects. Aside from maintaining accurate records, an good Customer Relationship Management (CRM – eg. SalesForce.com) System allows you to schedule a follow-up as far ahead as several years after making a call even!

You might encounter prospects that still have existing contracts, for example, but if they tell you to call them as soon as their contract expires then schedule a follow-up at the right time. The advantages of using a system like this are too many to list here. Check one out – there are tons of options. I’ve listed a few good ones in the Online Resources section of this eBook.

(8) Visualize

One powerful technique that will do wonders for your prospecting is the use of visualization. Before you start your prospecting session, visualize everything that is going to take place. Visualize every detail of your call and how it will unfold. You open your call with your attention-grabbing opening statement, or introduction and your prospect excitedly listens to your proposition. The final scene shows you scheduling the appointment, or confirming an important email address. Don’t be surprised if your prospecting calls turn out exactly as you have envisioned them – the power of a positive mind should NEVER be underestimated.

Visualization also helps you relax. It clears your mind, heightens your concentration, eliminates negative thoughts and helps you think positively. All these are benefits of visualization and they equip you to withstand any anxiety or negativity that you’ll encounter on your prospecting calls. Another benefit of visualization is that it builds up your confidence. Your ability to get the prospect’s nod on your offering will be enhanced by your confidence. Prospects are likely to buy from someone who exudes a lot of confidence.

It’s like an All-Star basketball player seeing the winning basket drop through the hoop before they even take the shot. They know it. They FEEL it. Get onto YouTube and search for the 3-Point Shootout from the 1988 NBA All-Star weekend. Larry Bird needs the final shot to drop to win the title. He releases the ball and whilst its still on its way towards the hoop, he is already on his way to the center of the court to collect his prize. Seriously watch it… THAT is visualization!

(9) Never, EVER Quit!

Prospecting is like a game. You win some, you lose some. You will also have your own share of rejections, but don’t let that discourage you. Consider it as a lesson to be learned and just keep going. Never let go of a prospect too easily. Most prospects will throw objections your way, or say ‘no’ in other ways at least a few times, before they say ‘yes’. So don’t quit. Quitting will only leave you with the bitter aftertaste of knowing that you could have won the game had you stayed on and kept playing.

Your persistence will impress on the minds of your prospects and they will start the wonder about the full value of your product or service – eventually, you’ll win them over.

This is a complete, FREE chapter from the upcoming release of “Telesales Magic – Proven Tips, Tactics and Techniques to Help You Sell More on the Phone!”, the brand new eBook/AudioBook companion course by 20-year telesales veteran, Chris C. Ducker which is due for release this coming Friday 18th February, 2011.

This is a guest post by Paul Archer

Mirror mirror on the wall, who is the fairest of them all? Do you dive in head first into business speak with customers or coachees? Here’s a simple reminder for us all.

I hear suit telephone sales are up so are fountain pen sales. It’s all the extra business meetings we’re having. British Airways is even offering free business class flights to anywhere in the world to small business owners looking to export abroad.

It seems that in these tough times, we’re all out drumming up business with face to face meetings. And that’s a good thing. It’s heightened our awareness to go back to the basics of selling.

And with the pressure on we’re getting straight down to business talk and this couldn’t be more dangerous. This is a big mistake when you’ve never met someone before. No, we ought to be holding back on business talk even in these pressured times and become even more interested in them, become curious about them as a person. People like to do business with people they both like and trust. OK you may not be fantastic buddies but you like and respect each other and only then will business result.

Do you know when you are with a friend, you get along really well and you become like them, you match their personality, their mood, their pace, their body language, eye contact…everything. But when you are with someone who wouldn’t be a great friend and is not like you, naturally you are not going to become like them are you?

In telephone sales though, you need to become a little bit like them so as to build trust and some likeness. For example, anyone who knows me can see that I’m quite bubbly and excitable and energetic, I like to be positive. My wife thinks I’m quite loud!

So if  I meet someone who is the opposite then I need to purposely become like their personality a little. I need to slow down, monotone my voice a little, speak like them, give them the same amount of eye contact as they give me.

I call it personality matching and it works. That way we will build a rapport, begin to trust each other and get on. Then we can start talking about business.

Mirror mirror on the wall…who is the fairest of them all? Not you, but the person you’re talking with, so let’s spend some of our attention on them and begin to match their personality before diving head first into business speak.

Paul Archer is an international sales speaker, sales trainer, author and coach based in the UK. He specializes in rapport selling and rapport coaching and can ignite his audiences large or small. For more information on Paul and his training courses, visit www.archertraining.co.uk or his sales  blog at www.paularcher.com

This is a guest post by Paul Archer

I’d like to show you a great tip when you really need to appreciate what your customer is thinking. Ideal for the consultative salesperson and sales coach.

I’ve never travelled on a rollercoaster. Honest, I know it sounds remarkable, but I’ve never had the courage to climb in the small cab and ride the heart wrenching and stomach churning experience.

Until one afternoon over Christmas when my youngest son dared me to get on the ride at Poulton’s Park. Now if you ever want to motivate me to do something, you only need to dare me. I think it’s hard wired into most
men.

I watched Euan first and thought I’d use the 1st, 2nd, 3rd position that we use all the time when selling. Now this clever little tip helps
you see, feel and fully understand what it’s like for someone else and in sales, is a really useful way of exploring the customer’s point of view.
1st position is where you look at things through your own eyes and as I stared at Euan on the rollercoaster all I could think of was fear, trepidation, how foolish, help! 2nd position is where you step out of your
shoes and move into the customer’s shoes and look at thinks through this person’s eyes, in other words see and feel their point of view.

So I tried this and moved into Euan’s shoes. Initially I could still feel my fear and trepidation, but I kept at it and began to see how Euan saw the ride. He was smiling and cheering, so loud I could hear him from where I was standing. As he approached the top of the loop just before he was to plunge downwards at breath-taking speed, his look was of apprehension but total excitement. He was enjoying the thrill of the ride and I started to feel what this was like for him. 3rd position is where you stand back, disassociate yourself from both viewpoints and look objectively at the situation. With customers, we get to see their views and yours in tandem. On the rollercoaster I could see Euan’s viewpoint, mine and the other passengers on the coaster. I realised that everyone seemed to be having fun and that this miserable father was seeing the rollercoaster in a very blinkered way.

And did I enjoy it? Yes I did, and I had to go on it again and again. In fact since it wasn’t too busy I went on the same ride 3 times and Euan now thinks his Dad is real cool. So next time you really want to appreciate your customer’s point of view, go from 1st position, to 2nd and then finally to 3rd position.

Paul Archer is an international sales speaker, sales trainer, author and coach based in the UK. He specializes in rapport selling and rapport coaching and can ignite his audiences large or small. For more information on Paul and his training courses, visit www.archertraining.co.uk or his sales  blog at www.paularcher.com

This is a guest post by Paul Archer.

On the train one spring morning to London I met three very interesting ladies who made me think about financial advisers or, in fact,
any phone sales people who want to differentiate themselves from their competition, so let me hare with you why.

These ladies are from Indonesia and live and work in Gloucester. They were dressed immaculately and were chatting and being excited about their trip to London. Being the day before Easter, the train was packed with day trippers looking forward to a day in
London and I expected these ladies to bedoing the same.

“No, we.re going to the Embassy to vote forour President”.
“Oh” I looked surprised.
“Yes”, the lady opposite me explained. “We could vote by post but we prefer to make a day of it, do some shopping, attend a show,
and enjoy each others company as well as vote”.

And that got me thinking about financial advisers and their competition. You see competition for financial advisers is not other
financial advisers, it’s the internet. But some see it as competition, some don’t. Those that fear the internet and see their products that they sell as a commodity.

And that’s dangerous. The internet sells commodities really well and will be more and more effective at this over the next few years.
If you see yourself as a phone sales person of a commodity such as a life assurance, health insurance, pensions and such then you are
doomed. Doomed to be discarded in favour of the internet that’ll sell this much better than you, and cheaper too.

Now my ladies on the train could have voted by post but preferred to enjoy the attractions of London – shopping, seeing a show.
In the same way a client meeting a financial adviser will enjoy what they have to offer. Professional advice, consultation, listening to
their goals and problems and then advisingthem from a plethora of products which ones would help them achieve their goals or solve
their problems.

Many people will prefer to buy these products quickly and painlessly on the internet, but equally many will prefer the longer advice
version.

So be crystal clear as to what you sell. Commodities or advice. And then ensure your clients know exactly how you work right
upfront to overcome the internet objection that will rear its ugly head later. And remember you.re in business to understand
your clients first and foremost. Your job is not to sell products but to understand your client.s position, so invest in your skills this
year and next to do this even better that you are right now.

Maybe the internet can give advice in the future but it will not be automated, this can’t be one. This is what will happen in the future.
Your hologram will be transported to the client via the internet, saving you physically travelling to them.

The technology is there right now to do this,but it costs a small fortune. The internet can transport holograms – pop stars and
politicians are doing it now. Robbie Williams was beamed to a concert recently, Prince Charles was beamed to a conference last
year, and CEOs of major corporations are using this technology to hold important summits without leaving their homes.

But at the moment it’s too expensive for everyone.

In 5 years time we’ll all be using the same technology but it will still be you that is giving the financial advice the client needs who
prefers to get from you rather than buying the commodity over the internet.

So beware that you don’t slip into commodity selling.

And my Indonesian ladies, they were really looking forward to their mini break in London. Poor me – I was on business.

Paul Archer is an international sales speaker, sales trainer, author and coach based in the UK. He specializes in rapport selling and rapport coaching and can ignite his audiences large or small. For more information on Paul and his training courses, visit www.archertraining.co.uk or his sales blog at www.paularcher.com

This is a guest post by Jill Konrath

“Pssst.  Did you hear about …?” As human beings, we’re instinctively curious – especially when we know there’s a big announcement coming soon.

That’s why I immediately signed up for Obama’s “Be the First to Know” campaign – even though I’m not particularly interested in who he selects as his vice presidential running mate.

Yet I couldn’t resist being notified of his decision immediately via email or text message. Go figure!

How can you pique your prospect’s curiosity? What can you do to increase anticipation?  Think about it. You might discover some engaging strategies that make all the difference in the world.

Jill Konrath, author of Selling to Big Companies, helps sellers crack into corporate accounts, shorten sales cycles and win big contracts. She’s a frequent speaker at annual sales meetings, kick-off events and professional conferences. For timely and provocative sales advice, visit www.SellingtoBigCompanies.com

This is a guest post by Paul Archer

Have you ever given your negative emotions away with your body language and wish you had stayed in control? Then you.ll be aware of your leakage. Read on to see how you can make this body language principle work well for you in selling and coaching.

Cold yet bright, London can be a great city to do business in. But eventually we all like to get home. Except I.d missed my train by a whisker. Now trains run from Paddington Station to Cheltenham every two hours so I had a long wait.

So I settled down to a long strong coffee at Starbucks and began to watch people. I love watching people, recognizing their body language, guessing what they.re thinking, don.t you just love that pastime.

In walked this young chap and he began to queue looking at the various coffees and goodies he could buy when he caught sight of the extremely good looking girl sitting in the corner sipping her latte.

What I saw was amazing – not the girl but the boy.s body language which reacted dramatically as a summer storm. His eyes widened, a big smile appeared and his stomach shrank as be pulled his stomach in and his chest out. His body language showed leakage.

I call it leakage when someone suddenly changes their body language for a reason – it really is quite spectacular when it happens and can be very useful in selling and coaching.

It.s useful to know about leakage for yourself and for your clients. Observing your client.s leakage is vital if you want to look for non verbal buying signals, which I always believe are the best ones. The body never lies but people have been known to tell them instead. Use “test” closing to check for body language leakage. “How does that sound?” or “What do you think so far?” Watch them carefully for those sudden changes. Focus on the face as that.s where we can.t hide our feelings.

Calibrate what normal looks like for them and compare with the leaked facial expressions and you can tell instantly whether they.re happy or not, or want to buy from you or not. Be aware of your own leakage as well. When you.re presenting to clients and you.re posed a tricky question, don.t give away your position by leaking your body language. Ask someone what happens to you when you are put under some pressure and learn to mask this the next time it happens. I.ve often seen this with people who are presenting in public and get a difficult moment, such as a question or their remote breaks down or they forget what to say next.

Leakage observation can also help you if you want to see how someone reacts to you. Now this chap in Starbucks would have been better off if he kept his eye on the pretty girl as her body language leaked as well. She couldn.t keep her eyes off him and her leakage was striking. If only he.d read my article and glanced at her – they might have had a great future together. But instead he left with his skinny latte in a rather rushed manner. The innocence of youth or is it body language naivety.

Paul Archer is an international sales speaker, sales trainer, author and coach based in the UK. He specializes in rapport selling and rapport coaching and can ignite his audiences large or small. For more information on Paul and his training courses, visit www.archertraining.co.uk or his sales  blog at www.paularcher.com

This is a guest post by Jill Konrath

Cold calling is tough. We all struggle with it. That’s why I laughed today when I talked with Sara, who works for a New York-based PR firm. She’d just seen my new video clips where I’m speaking about the challenges of phone sales and connecting with corporate decision makers.

Sara understood exactly what I was talking about! That’s when she told me her story:

I was calling a major media outlet to “pitch” one of our clients. Of course, I got voice mail. About half way through my message, my mind went totally blank. So I hung up.

As soon as my memory returned, I recalled the client and picked up exactly where I left off …

“Hi. This is Sara calling again. We must have gotten disconnected. As I was saying…”

Now that’s quick thinking. I wish I’d thought of it!

Jill Konrath, author of Selling to Big Companies, helps sellers crack into corporate accounts, shorten sales cycles and win big contracts. She’s a frequent speaker at annual sales meetings, kick-off events and professional conferences. For timely and provocative sales advice, visit www.SellingtoBigCompanies.com

This is a guest post by Paul Archer

Test closes are brilliant ways of testing the water with your customers. We all use them probably without even knowing it as it’s

something you always hear top performing sales people doing.

Tell me the difference between these three

test closes:

• How do you feel so far?
• How does it look to you so far?
• What are you saying to yourself so far?
• What are you hearing so far?

They all attempt to do the same thing, in other words, test the customers’ views and thoughts so you can continue with the meeting. Classic test closing. I wonder which one you tend to use with your clients or when coaching.

And I bet one of them really hit the mark with you, or resonated with you more, or was a question you could personally relate to.

You see the four test closes are carefully scripted to appeal to your thinking style. NLP gives us visual, kinaesthetic, auditory and digital thinking styles and everyone has a preference to think predominantly in one fashion although we’re quite capable of using all of them. We just prefer one.

If you can gauge your customer’s preferred style, then change your language to suit their favourite. Do start with one of the four test closes from above because it’s easy to do so, gets you into the habit and you could start tomorrow, couldn’t you?

The best way to calibrate your customers’ preferred thinking style is to listen to their language or keep an eye on their eye movements. There’s a great article on eye movements in our knowledge bank.

Paul Archer is an international sales speaker, sales trainer, author and coach based in the UK. He specializes in rapport selling and rapport coaching and can ignite his audiences large or small. For more information on Paul and his training courses, visit www.archertraining.co.uk or his sales  blog at www.paularcher.com

This is a guest post by Paul Archer

Welcome to the most widespread objection today and its not price.

Apparently they’re starring at Glastonbury this summer. I’m talking about Status Quo the rock band whom my 71 year old father is going to see in concert later this month. That shows you how long they’ve been around.

But the status quo have recently become quite a problem for sales people and I’m no longer talking about the band – I’m referring to lethargy or not taking any action.

Apart from the Internet, it’s the status quo that is today.s newest and biggest competitor. Customers are inclined to take no action unless we allow them to see the danger of this course and maybe the cost of doing nothing.

This extra competition that we’re now up against, doesn’t allow us to use our traditional objection handling strategies as we’re not having to compare our product or service with the competitors or justify its value. Instead we have to make sure we let our customer see the problems of not taking our advice.

And we must weave this into our sales patter.

This is particularly important for financial services salespeople who sell an invisible product. There’s an old adage that life assurance is sold and never bought and this is even more prevalent today. Make your customer aware of the dangers of the status quo; ask them what might happen if they don’t protect themselves in the event of their partner’s death, the issues this might bring up in their lives.

Questions, questions, questions – that’ll help them see the perils on inaction.

Let them explore in their mind the consequences of doing nothing and treat the status quo as just another competitor that you need to avoid during your selling process.

And Francis Rossi and Rick Parfitt from Status Quo can keep rocking all over the world until they’re ready to pick up their pension. I do believe Francis is 60 next birthday. Fantastic.

Paul Archer is an international sales speaker, sales trainer, author and coach based in the UK. He specializes in rapport selling and rapport coaching and can ignite his audiences large or small. For more information on Paul and his training courses, visit www.archertraining.co.uk or his sales  blog at www.paularcher.com