In The Pipeline
Paul Goldner is the author of Red Hot Customers and Red Hot Cold Call Selling, and as you might imagine, he's an expert in sales training. He has joined me on the show several times to talk about this issue.Paul and I agree that one of the most important aspects of selling successfully is prospect development. Your pipeline. Pipeline? You know, the folks you are going to close next month because you did the prospecting last month. Yeah, those guys.
What's in YOUR pipeline? In most industries you can't count on business this month from prospects that you just identified. Sure, you're going to get some of that, but the selling cycle is often longer than a month, unless you're selling socks, or milk. In some industries it's not uncommon to have a multi-month selling cycle, sometimes more than a year. The longer the selling cycle, the more disciplined you must be at prospecting.
For most of us, prospecting is not something that we look forward to. It requires thought, strategy, planning, and actually picking up the phone or wearing out some shoe leather. None of which is as much fun as writing up the contract. Paul has a good thought on this. It's actually one of the Prospecting Commandments in his book.
Paul says, "Make an appointment with yourself every day to prospect". He adds, "Find the hour of the day that works for you and your schedule, and then put it on your planner every day.
One of the enemies of prospecting is success. You heard me right! Remember what I said about having fun writing contracts? If you worked really hard prospecting last month, and all that is paying off this month with business, the challenge you have is to stick to your prospecting plan. It's easy to lapse into a false sense of security when business is good.
Let's add a clause to Paul's prospecting Commandment. After "Make an appointment with yourself every day to work on prospecting", add this, "NO MATTER HOW MUCH BUSINESS YOU HAVE RIGHT NOW!"
Write this on a rock... Keep your prospect pipeline flowing by prospecting every day. Remember, it's the one that keeps that other pipeline full. You know, the one you get food from.
Paul Goldner's website is www.RedHotSales.com. He's working on some new things I think you will want to know about.
