Call it what you want ... lead generation, business development, canvassing, door to door, talking with referrals, follow up from a networking event, asking for referrals or even making the "Dreaded Cold Call." You can disguise it anyway you want. You are prospecting!
Prospects may come from a variety of sources that include your warm or natural market. You may also receive a steady flow of prospects from centers of influence, such as attorneys, doctors, accountants or VIPs in your community. What about referrals from clients or friends? You may even belong to associations and business networking groups. What about social media? (compliance permitting).
Skeptics say that prospecting is dead. It's not. And it never will be. The decision to prospect is yours alone.
True, the old way of selling is dead and gone forever, but prospecting continues to be the foundation of all successful businesses and salespeople. So what is prospecting?
Prospecting is defined as "in search of" or "to labor for." What are we all searching for? We should be prospecting for (or searching for) new customers, or new business from our existing customers. It's that simple.
Question — If you had the cure for cancer, how many cancer patients would you approach each day? Of course you would approach as many as you could. Make sense?
Why then, do we stop prospecting? The simple answer is that it is hard work. We get lazy and complacent. After all, it's easier to check your voicemail or email isn't it? Voicemail can't object, email doesn't challenge our value. We get caught up in all the stuff that really doesn't matter.
In closing: The following quote from Frank Bettger's book How I Raised Myself from Failure to Success in Selling
Happy Prospecting!
