Prospecting Is Dead

What’s the first thing that comes to your mind when your referrals have slowed down and you need new clients?? ?

Most likely, a voice enters your mind from your old mentor that said to you: “If you need new clients, get out there, ‘shake the trees’, and start prospecting!”.?

It’s probably below your pay grade at this stage of your career (especially if you have a book of business), to have to start “pounding the pavement”, as the old sales gurus used to say.?

But is prospecting (in the traditional sense) still a relevant and applicable concept for selling today??

In the pre-information era, when information was relatively scarce, prospecting for new clients by cold engagement in an attempt to prove your value (the “numbers game” approach) was relatively effective, because society back then was predisposed to trusting most people, without a previous developed relationship.?

Demonstrating your expertise through providing information back then, meant that you had knowledge and having knowledge, portrayed you as an authority.?

Fast forward to today, information and knowledge as authority building, has lost it’s leverage, primarily because other advisors are dispensing similar advice.?

Information is everywhere and knowledge is common, so people are less impressed by it.?

Because of this, prospecting in the traditional sense of the term is dead and it’s time it were laid to rest for good.?

What’s needed instead is a way to prove your authority with potential clients that isn’t based on knowledge and information.?

What’s needed is a marketing system that selectively targets your most ideal clients only, by identifying the “ponds” they swim in, and fishing them out using a trust-based message precisely and directly relevant to their deepest and most urgent problems, that they can’t help but respond to.?

You’re not asking them if they’re interested in what you have to offer, your philosophy or your firm, which is what traditional prospecting essentially does.?

Rather, you’re showing them that they have a problem and they no longer can ignore it -- and their response to you based on this approach, is motivated by the perception that you understand their problem and therefore understand them.?

You’re not an authority based on your knowledge, you’re an authority based on how quickly they trust you.?

This is an entirely different philosophy and approach to traditional prospecting, because it frames the sales interaction around the prospect needing you, instead of you needing them (the key to being an authority).?

Rather than jumping straight back into the same old ideas and tactics that the gurus are still espousing (which perhaps you’re growing tired of), and getting busy with the same old prospecting activities you did last year, ask yourself these questions first:?

1. Who is my ideal client??

1. Who has them in their “pond”??

1. What is their number one problem and how do I market that problem, to generate a response that’s based on them seeing me as an authority they can trust??

?

Ari Galper is the number one authority on trust-based selling and has created Unlock The Game?, a new sales mindset that overturns the notion of selling as we know it today. Thousands of Business Owners worldwide have been transformed by his trust-based sales approach. Get access to his Free Masterclass at?www.UnlockTheGame.com/Video, order his new book "Unlock The Sales Game" at?www.UnlockTheGame.com/AriBookOrderNow, subscribe to his podcast "Stump The Guru" or to be a guest on his live show, visit?www.UnlockTheGame.com/StumpTheGuru?