There are only 2 categories of people in your world. Those you know and those you don’t. And guess which is the bigger one!
This translates directly to sales people. There are those who just “farm”. Manage existing accounts and relationships hoping for more business. And the rest who recognise the pool of people who could possibly become clients (but have never heard of them) is huge in comparison.
They hunt for new business by reaching out, starting conversations, determining interest and closing business.
So why don’t more salespeople do this?
It often comes down “stranger danger” or a fear of rejection. So you won’t pick up the phone.
So here’s one way of getting past this.
Warm up your prospects first. If they’re on LinkedIn, connect, like, share and comment on their posts, send them an interesting article etc.
Alternatively send them emails with the same content.
If you have a physical address send them the content in the mail.
If you belong to the same network group of chamber of commerce, use that as a common link.
Then pick up the phone and call. Chances are there’s some familiarity which warms up the call.
Now obviously there’s a lot more to this. We’re have a series of masterclasses on prospecting so if you’d like our help putting together an execution system, drop me a note.