Do you see prospecting as an activity or a culture? What’s the difference, you might ask?
In most sales teams, it’s an activity. It’s something that switches on reluctantly when the supply of leads starts to dry up. It’s why our research has found that 79% of salespeople regard finding new prospects as the biggest challenge they face.
In high performing sales teams, it’s part of the culture. It’s habitual, continuous, and recognised for the vital skill that it is.
How will you know if you have a positive prospecting culture?
For a start, sales teams with a positive prospecting culture have a process and methodology that relies on more than ‘hit and hope’ cold calling. They get to speak to the right person more often and convert more opportunities into appointments and sales.
In a positive prospecting culture, it’s a calm and measured activity that sales professionals incorporate into their routine. The pipeline never becomes reduced to a trickle and nobody needs to panic because they have no appointments booked.
Teams are less stressed and more motivated because they have a regular supply of qualified leads that they know they have a good chance of converting.
A Better Process
There isn’t much to be gained by applying a flawed process more often. In fact, if the usual result is rejection this can quickly become demoralising. Sure Train teaches your team a more successful two-phase approach to prospecting that has been refined over ten years. This typically improves conversion rates by five times or more.
Beyond Skills
Learning a process is one thing - but that doesn’t create a culture. Sure Train goes further by working with you to create the new structures, practices, habits and skills that turn training into positive cultural change.
Change starts at the top. Total commitment from sales leaders is vital. Behavioural change is always hard and people won’t come with you if you seem inconsistent or less than fully committed. Commitment must be very public and clearly communicated to the sales team, along with goals and expectations.
Structured Activity
The structure of activity is central to success. You need to work out an activity structure that can be delivered, week in, week out, without fail. This means looking at predicted conversion rates, the time available, and your sales team’s need to be in front of clients and prospects. It’s a question of achieving a balance that will bring consistency.
Measurement and Accountability
Selecting the right measurements will ensure that activities take place and the predicted conversion rates are achieved. Differences in individual performance should also be tracked so that training, coaching and management can be focused in the right areas.
Measurement processes should be clear, easy to complete, useful in the information output and simple to corroborate using other metrics.
This is just a quick summary of the benefits and specifics of creating a positive prospecting culture. How it looks in practice is different for every sales team. To find out more, contact us on 0800 840 1501 or email hello@suretrain.co.uk.
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