Salespeople and Fishing

OK, I just thought this was an enertaining spin on the old parable about teaching someone to fish so that they can feed themselves for a lifetime. One day I'm going to get around to creating the first Bachelor of Business (Sales) university program for intending salespeople. Unit 101 will be Why People Buy and unit 201 will probably be How to Fish.

It continues to astound me how few salespeople are comfortable and competent at prospecting. It's the hardest part of the sales process....and as importantly ....the first; yet most buyers of sales training spend significant sums on complicated and over -engineered sales strategy workshops that leave out the prospecting step. I'll put it this way because it is the reality, give me salespeople who prospect often and well and they'll sell the sox off the girls and boys who know the fancy stuff but can't get a seat at the table with a buyer in the first place.

So how is this process and skill definiciency best addressed? We typically start with some time with the marketing team to ensure that their prospecting messaging targets the problems and opportunities their solutions solve; and then move into a sales prospecting training program that is focused on building a huge opportunity pipeline. We then send the team back to the field to prospect for a minimum of thirty days; and only after that do we bring them back to do some skill work on developing the opportunities the prospecting activity has created.