Fanatical Prospecting is a great book that everyone who focuses on prospecting should buy. This is a must read book by Jeb Blount, for SDRs, BDRs, full cycle Account Executives, and Founders who are new to sales.
Fanatical Prospecting Cliff Notes
Opportunities are key to good sales numbers and you only get there through prospecting
In sales, business, and life you can control 3 things
- Your actions
- Your reactions
- Your mindset
Need to have right mindset to succeed and always prospecting means you need to want to win
It’s not about if it’s a cold, warm, or hot call. It’s about the willingness of the part of the rep to interrupt
Inbound works but misses a lot of the market
Ignore the what ifs of the call and make it
You must interrupt prospect’s day to make sales
Adopt a balanced prospecting methodology! Like a diversified stock portfolio
Prospecting needs a mix of telephone, in-person, email, social selling, texting, referrals, networking, inbound leads, trade shows and cold calling. What you invest in depends on your unique situation.
The more you prospect, the luckier you get
Three Laws of Prospecting
- The universal law of need
- The 30-day rule
- The law of replacement
The universal law of need states that the more you need something, the less likely that it is that you will get it. This law comes into play in sales when lack of activity has left your pipeline depleted.
The 30 day rule states that prospecting you do in this 30 day period will pay off for the next 90 days. 30 day rule may be one week rule in shorter sales. Implication is that if you miss a day of prospecting it will bite you sometime in next 90 days. Miss a week and your commission will take a hit. Miss a month and your pipeline is toast.
The law of replacement teaches is that you must constantly be pushing new opportunities into your pipeline so that your naturally replacing opportunities that will fall out. And you must do so at a rate that matches or exceeds your closing ratio
example – Becky has 30 prospects. She has a closing percentage of 10%. She closes one deal. How many prospects remain in her pipe? Answer is 20. She has 1/10 chance of closing deal in pipe. The other 9 are no longer viable prospects. This means her pipe is reduced by 10 rather than 1. She must replace those 10 to keep her pipeline full.
Always be prospecting
First rule or sales slumps is to start prospecting!
Know your numbers
Sales is a numbers game
What you (quality) you put into the pipe and how much (quantity) determines what you get out of the pipe
Make sure you know activity numbers and what comes from that
The three P’s that hold people back
- Procrastination
- Perfectionism
- Paralysis by analysis – playing the what if game
Procrastination is the grave in which opportunity is buried
Disrupting the 3ps – focus on making one call and then the next, then the next. Or tell them to “just do it”
Time management is key to success in sales. Need to optimize for selling time.
Block off golden hour times for prospecting and don’t let anything interfere. Always have it on calendar to prospect.
Horstman’s Corollary
Parkinson’s law states that work tends to expand to fill the time allotted for it. Hortsman’s corollary is the converse. It describes how work contracts to fit into the time allowed. So you could allocate 60 calls for a day and people will make 60 over 8 hours or 60 calls for 2 hours and people will make 60 calls in 2 hours.
Sales gravy has inside sales team do 120 calls in three hour blocks.
Blocking off uninterrupted time works excellently.
Just make dials, no research and update the crm after. No breaks during the hour, no getting coffee. Have a targeted list prepared before. Make notes and log everything after which is time blocked for crm activity. Schedule blocks for email and social prospecting
Three power hours – morning, midday and afternoon.
The above works bc work fits in allotted time so more gets done and anyone can stay focused for an hour.
If you can stick to an hour a day to make 25-50 calls, another hour for emai, another for social, your pipe will be packed in 60 days.
Time blocked off for prospecting cannot be blown off. It is mandatory! Don’t multi task! Just make calls, update crm after.
Blocking off time to only make calls is key. No email. No texts. Nothing but calls!!!!!!!
Do not let email stop you from getting your day started and respecting prospecting. block off first hour or two of day for prospecting!
Golden hours – sales prospecting and nothing else
Platinum hours – everything else to set up your day for sales activity
Fanatical Prospecting Objectives
- Set an appointment
- Gather information and qualify
- Close a sale
- Build familiarity
Make sure to define what a qualified opportunity looks like
Start prospecting with highest value to lowest value. Based on potential or size of opportunity and the probability they will convert into a sale. Top is hot inbound leads or referrals. Bottom is contact info only. Create a list to call based on this.
CRM – update records, good in depth notes, log calls, put new leads in when you get them
Fanatical Prospecting Book Summary: Referrals
- Customer – happy clients that trust you. Need to create a system/process for asking for them.
- Personal – from friends or family
- Professional – from your professional network
Key to getting a referral is give a legendary customer experience and ask!
EXAMPLE OF REFERRAL ASK
“Patricia, thank you again for your business. I’m glad to hear you’re happy with us. I’m working hard to add more customers like you. Would you be able to introduce me to other people in your network who might want to use (your offering)”
Social Selling page 107 is worth review
Social selling chapter is the guide to social selling
Social is best for building familiarity not being pitched or sold to.
Find two channels and use them, figure out which are best for your target customer and prospects.
Email and phone better than social.
Make sure your profile is good on LinkedIn because buyers will look at it!
Connect with everyone you talk to on LinkedIn.
Your Message Matters
“I would love to have a few minutes of your time to tell you about our company” is a terrible message
Messaging on phone, email, social…
Don’t —-
-product and service features dump
-an enthusiastic pitch about their company being number one or biggest of that
-regurgitated list of generic facts and figures
-marketing brochures
-irrelevant info
Prospects meet with you for their reasons, not yours. Your message much demonstrate a sincere interest in learning about them, listening to them, and solving their problems.
Don’t overcomplicate message
Must exude confidence! Be relaxed too.
Enthusiasm and confidence are key!
What You Say
Must be quick, simple, direct and relevant.
Answer WIFM – what’s in it for me? For the prospect.
- Focus on a biz objective that is measured. You’ll get their attention if you focus on a metric that impacts their performance
- Disrupts the status quo – people don’t like change and will only move from status quo when they feel they can significantly improve their current situation – increase sales, reduce costs, improve efficiency, reduce stress, etc
- Offers proof of evidence
Power statements
- The prospects issues
- Your offering that addresses these issues
- Competitive differentiators
Why do my customers choose to do business with me???
Fanatical Prospecting Cliff Notes Tip: The Power or Because
“I’d like 15 minutes of your time BECAUSE I’d like learn more about you and your company” works surprisingly well
See example of message with pic from page 142
Pitch emotion not logic
Make decisions with emotions and justify with logic.
They give up time if you offer
- Emotional value – connect on emotional level – relating to painful emotions like stress, worry, insecurity, distrust, anxiety, fear, frustration or anger and offering them peace of mind, security, options, lower stress, less worry or hope
- Insight (curiosity) value: give them power or leverage over other people. Help maintain competitive edge.
- Tangible value – logic. Similar situation that we delivered
ASK FOR WHAT YOU WANT
Ask for meeting. Ask for appointment. Ask confidently.
- Ask with confidence and assume you’ll get what you want
- Shut up
- Be prepared to deal with reflex responses, brush offs and objections
See images from 148 and 149
Good asks;
The reason I’m calling is…”
“Tell me who how when where what”
“Why don’t we go ahead and get that set up?”
“How about we meet at 2pm”
Remember, success in prospecting = Quality X Quantity.
