A prospecting plan is instrumental in making sure you actually reach your prospecting goals, and therefore your sales goals. After all, prospecting is the life-blood of sales.
Let’s take a look at five key components for your prospecting plan.
Pay time versus no-pay time
The basic concept here is that some of your prospecting involves finding prospective clients, setting appointments, keeping those appointments and servicing customers. That’s your pay time.
Other time you have involves writing proposals, preparing talks, organizing your contacts, writing letters and emails and doing research. That’s your no-pay time.
It’s easier said than done in some industries. But that whole concept is a phenomenal concept, if you use it when creating your prospecting plan and prospecting calendar. Just knowing it doesn’t count. Actually look at when you can be making money and when you can’t.
Tracking your current prospecting activities
Going through the exercise of tracking your prospecting activities is sometimes the reality check or kick in the gut that you need. It tells you what you need to do more of and what you need to do less of. It makes you aware of where you may be wasting some time.
Budget time
You should have budgeted allocations of time in your prospecting plan. If you don’t block out time for prospecting, it’s very common for one, two, or several days to go by where you don’t accomplish what we set out to accomplish.
And what’s even worse is when a month, six months, or a year has gone by, and nothing seems to be working for you. Budgeting your time helps avoid that issue.
Budget resources
You should also have a specified allocation of resources as part of your prospecting plan. That might be money and it might be other things. You don’t have unlimited resources, and you need to account for that. Really be honest about yourself as far as where your resources are going, and seeing if it’s the best investment.
Remember real life
We know that unforeseen things can come up. If our plan doesn’t account for that, you can get derailed pretty quickly. Especially if you are more prone to creative avoidance than others.
The Prospecting Formula
Prospecting is the life-blood of sales. But how can you be sure you're doing the right activities the right way at the right frequency? This Prospecting Formula PDF can help you determine what your prospecting cookbook should look like.
Build your prospecting cookbook
Crandall is the Principal of Sandler in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. He works with business owners and motivated individuals to create and implement Professional Development Strategies to foster the growth of individuals, teams, and organizations.
