Creating a Prospecting Vacuum
If you asked your salespeople what should be happening more, and they told you the truth, they would tell you that they aren’t prospecting enough. There are many potential reasons that prospecting is avoided– like busy work, order fulfillment, CRM work, paperwork, meetings, etc. All of these reasons are rooted in one core cause: prospecting has become less important than something else.
If you have hired good salespeople who will prospect, then why is this happening? Have you created the problem? Have you loaded them up with work that is deemed more important than pursuing new business?
One example of this is the installation of CRM software to track opportunities, manage the pipeline, and keep track of customer activity. Management usually implements the software for the wrong reasons. They make the goal of the automation to collect data rather than to making things easier for their sales people. They ask their salespeople to input everything that they are doing into the software. Soon, every conversation and sales meeting is about using the CRM instead of managing the pipeline. Because management in emphasizing the importance of getting data in the CRM, prospecting is now less important.
Other tasks, like managing and tracking orders, attending pointless sales meetings, taking care of issues with orders, special projects, and general administrative tasks can have the same effect. If a customer is not getting the service they need, then their issue is more important than prospecting. If the accountant needs paperwork done on time, then getting that done is more important than prospecting.
If you really want your sales people out getting new business, make that what they are supposed to do. Instead of automating to get what you need from them, automate things that take them away from prospecting. Instead of having them take care of product and service issues, ask them to let customer service handle it. Create a prospecting vacuum. Make prospecting one of the only things left to do. If all that they had to do were prospect, wouldn’t it be important?
