I’ve seen many articles lately on prospecting.  My guess is that those who have been content to manage accounts have found themselves in the position of now having to acquire accounts. Things are a little different these days. I’ve never been handed a load of accounts to manage, grow or nurture. Those tasks have been part of my job, but ONLY after I acquired them. Somehow, I have always been the leader on my team in number of new customers acquired. I really like the challenge and sense of accomplishment from winning a brand new customer.

So, I decided to share how I’ve consistently held this title over the past 15 years. I don’t think I have a magic formula, I think it’s mostly just doing it. I jotted down a list of activities and strategies I’ve employed. It is some combination of these things that has brought me consistent success in winning (and keeping) new business.

Before I begin, let me tell you something about my personality that is relevant to my system. I am not an elephant hunter by nature. I prefer to diversify a bit. I like having several customers spending with me, not just one monster account. Now, I’ve landed some elephants, but have never been comfortable with all my revenue coming from one account. My stomach can’t take that risk. I love my elephants, but the smaller game helps me sleep at night. My guess is there is a entirely different set of rules for elephant hunters. (I know a great one and will see if he will give us his list soon.)

So, here is my list:

1. Schedule one day a week for prospecting.
2. Cold calling is the most productive prospecting activity.
3. Warm up cold calls with e-mails and mail.
4. Always give them an out. I would end most e-mails and voicemails with the option to not connect. I’d say “you may decide this [blank] isn’t helpful and if so we can both move on.”
5. Name drop.  It sounds ugly, but if you work with a well-respected, well-known, successful company, it helps to mention it.
6. Demonstrate expertise.  Share articles or best practices that show you know their business and are an expert in your field.  I landed amazing appointments last year by calling prospects to see if they wanted to get together to discuss best practices I’d been seeing in their industry.  I had unique visibility that they did not have.  I got every appointment I asked for.  I genuinely wanted to help and the outcome was lots of great appointments.
7. On that note, help them succeed before they even hire you.  I shared articles and ideas with prospective customers all the time.  I build trust and credibility which turns into actual business.
8. Take lessons away daily.  After each prospecting activity, I’d make a note of the outcomes, the reactions and the results.  I changed “scripts”, time of day, etc.  To this day, I am continually honing these activities.
9. Compare notes with other salespeople.  Shorten your learning curve by learning from other’s mistakes and successes.
10. Read books and articles on selling.  You will pick up new ideas and, more importantly, motivation by staying up on new ideas.
11. Subscribe to your prospects press releases, tweets and set up Google Alerts.  I was constantly sharing news with my prospects about their company that they had not seen.  They came to rely on me.  That news also helped me shape my value proposition statement for our meetings.
12. Don’t sell on every call. Sometimes just share helpful information and don’t ask for anything in return. 
13. Call high.  I always start high in an organization.  I would start high and often ask “who on their team would they like me to talk to about [business result]“.  This worked so often.  I often got referred to a Director who ALWAYS took my call because it was now a referral from the SVP or CEO. And, most importantly, I had forever access to the senior leader. I kept that relationship alive by sending regular status updates (e-mail or phone) about our progress, thanking them for the referral and celebrating their successes.  Manager and Director level people move around, leave the company and get re-focused.  Having that senior relationship kept me in the game at an important level.
14. I get LinkedIn with prospective customers at the appropriate time.  As soon as it’s appropriate, I make that connection.  Now, no matter where they go, we stay connected.  LinkedIn also personalizes that relationship and is a small gesture on their part to indicate the desire to stay in touch.
15. Follow protocols.  For example, when I call a senior leader, I ask the receptionist if I can speak to “[name]’s assistant”. When I get the assistant I introduce myself and let them know I’d “like your guidance on setting up a meeting with [senior leader] to discuss [benefit to senior leader]“.  Very often, the assistant would tell me exactly the way to reach their boss complete with e-mail address, cell phone numbers and best time to call.  My message would start with “[assistant's name] suggested I email you…”.  Again, almost always got a response and built an on-going relationship with the person who has the best access to that decision maker.
16. Use your CRM effectively.  I had notes on every prospecting activity in my CRM.  Each week during my prospecting time, I would go prospect by prospect through my CRM and remind myself of the history I’ve built and make a decision on the appropriate contact, if any, for that prospecting day. 
17. Respect timelines.  If a senior leader suggests calling him back in July for a good reason, mark it on your calendar to do exactly that.  I did always mention that I liked to share helpful articles, etc and would they like to receive those as relevant in the meantime. The answer was always “yes” and I got permission to stay on the grid.  Often I would sign off with “look forward to connecting with you in July.”
18. Find multiple entry points into an organization if you are running into dead-ends or unresponsiveness with your first choice.  I used LinkedIN for this mainly.  Company websites are great for identifying and locating senior leaders, but LinkedIN is amazing for finding Department Heads. 
19. Referrals are great.  Many would say this is the best way to prospect.  It is a great way, but when I look back on my new customer acquisitions, they rarely came from referrals. 
20. Don’t wait for marketing.  Every sales team I’ve listened to believes marketing should be doing more for them.  Enjoy whatever marketing you have, but don’t rely on it.  Use the tools, maximize the resources, but don’t wait on it.  Just do it yourself.
21. When you have the chance, meet prospects in person instead of over the phone. Your relationship will get a 6 month headstart.

I’d love to hear other best practices, also. This is a list of what I do to win new business.  It certainly isn’t the final answer, but it’s worked for me.  And, its really fun to win a new mutually beneficial relationship.  It’s like making a new friend and, therefore, worth the effort.  Tell me your strategies for effectively winning new business by leaving a comment.

This post brought to you by Jill Myrick of Meeting to Win.  We provide weekly sales team meeting agendas so sales managers can lead effective sales team meetings without having to spend the time building the agenda.  The next agenda comes out Friday, Oct 30th and is titled “Getting a Headstart on Economic Recovery”.  Get a competitive edge by subscribing to the weekly sales team meeting agendas at https://www.meetingtowin.com/subscribe.

I’ve always love the formula I read in ProActive Sales Management years ago. It’s Revenue (R) = Frequency (F) X Competency (C). This formula has comforted me and 100% of the time proven true. I’ve seen variations of this formula, most of which complicate such a pure and simple formula. I’m sticking with this one.   What does this have to do with pumpkins?

Two weeks ago my 4-year old begged me for some pumpkin seeds while we were at a nursery. Of course, it’s not pumpkin planting season and… we don’t have a pumpkin garden, but I love these types of activities for kids so I invested the 50 cents and let him have at it. I figured that was the last we’d see of those seeds.

Imagine my surprise when two weeks later, and against many odds, I see pumpkins sproutlets. They are haphazardly spaced, clumped at the edge of the garden and, in some cases, have flowers planted on top of them, but nevertheless, pumpkins sprouts!

Those pumpkin sproutlets (R), planted by a gardener wtih no gardening skills or experience (C), but a lot of seeds (F) reminded me of this sales success formula.  Too often sales people try to get everything perfect before they start planting seeds.  I was talking to the “one salesperson” I wrote about a few weeks ago who has closed two more significant deals since that article and we were discussing this formula.  We both agreed that you just have to make the calls – even if your script isn’t perfect, your research not complete (it never is!), your timing not perfect or you’re just scared.  Each seed you plant can turn into a sprout.  If you are heavy on the F and low on the C to begin with, that’s fine. So, your garden may be haphazard til you build more C, but… you’ll have a garden (or some “R”!).

I’ll take a lopsided garden (R) over no garden (R) anyday!  So, here is your encouragement for today.  Just make the calls.  The same salesperson I mentioned above has always lived by the Nike tagline – Just Do It!  Don’t you just love it when it’s so simple.

Enjoy planting seeds this week.

This post brought to you by Jill Myrick, Owner of Meeting to Win.  Meeting to Win provides sales meeting agendas to make sales managers’ lives easier while equipping their teams to compete and win.  To get yours, visit http://meetingtowin.com/.

Over the past year, I’ve spoken to many Sales VPs and Sales Managers who struggle to get their sales teams to do the right number of sales activities.  The reps are consistently missing sales activity goals.  They find so many excuses not to do the calls or have the meetings and come up short week after week.  There is also the group that is hitting the activity goal, but with low-quality activity simply designed to check the box and keep their manager satisfied for the week.   For either group, it’s clear that they are not motivated to do the activity.

So, whats the problem?  Salespeople are smart business people motivated by commission checks.  So, why wouldn’t they want to do activity that leads to success and, therefore, commissions?

My observations tell me two things.

First, companies can do a poor job of requiring activities that actually lead to sales success.  Too often the sales activity standards are almost a distraction from the activities that actually influence sales.  Reps resent having to do these activities since they don’t see the activity standards contributing to their success.

Second, sales managers fail to show reps the reason for the activity standards.  If the sales activity standards are done correctly, then the activity should move a rep closer to goal achievement.  As a sales rep, I had a manager who regularly led a conversation with our sales team about which activities were proven to lead to sales success.  Occasionally we adjusted our activity standards upon examination of the evidence.  Everyone felt confident that the activities were a great use of time and not just busy work.  Too often sales managers don’t take the time to demonstrate through examples and evidence the REASON for the sales activity standards. The activity standards are not there to torture a sales rep, they are there to help them succeed. 

If you are a sales manager who is struggling to get your rep to meet minimum activity standards, take some time to examine the activity standards, look for evidence they are worth the effort and explore the value with the team.  If someone is trying to lose 5 pounds and they are told to do 20 push-ups per day, they won’t lose 5 pounds.  Guess what, it will be hard to get them to keep doing 20 push-ups per day just because someone told them to.  Now, if you tell them to eat 1200 calories and run 5 miles per day, they will lose weight and understand the value of the activity.  (Now, it’s true, some will still choose to NOT do the activity and then you have a motivation issue which is another article topic entirely.)

Make sure there is evidence to demonstrate the value of the sales activity and then demonstrate the value to reps through collaboration.  Contributing to their own success in controllable activity is extremely motivating.  Sales Managers may just need to lead them there.

This post brought to you by Jill Myrick at Meeting to Win, LLC.  Meeting to Win helps Sales Managers motivate and lead their teams through an interactive, sales-focused weekly sales team meeting. Visit us at http://www.meetingtowin.com/.