You may be surprised to learn that even MDRT members don't like prospecting, but they know it's something they have to do. Instead of dreading prospecting you should be looking forward to it with excited because you have to have prospects to sell. You don't look forward to prospecting because you want to be told "no". A system for prospecting will help you to get good at it. Of course, a system is worthless if you won't consistently implement it. Why you don't like prospecting now, and how you could like prospecting?
You can approach prospecting using a face-to-face approach or a direct response approach. Face-to-face prospecting involves: networking, cold calling via the telephone, cold calling via knocking on doors, and asking for referrals. You usually only think of face-to-face prospecting when you think about prospecting.
And you probably have the greatest resistance to the face-to-face approaches to prospecting. The reason you have the most resistance to face-to-face prospecting is because you run the risk of being told "no", and you take that "no" personally. That happens because you don't have a way to communicate the value of what you do in terms of what the people you want to work with want. The other approach to prospecting involves direct response prospecting. In this case, you'll still get a "no" when the other party isn't ready to buy, but it won't be face-to-face and it won't feel personal and it can still be a way to make a connection that turns into a buyer later. And there are a number of things you can do to increase the likelihood of getting a "yes" response to your direct response prospecting.
You have to have something that the people you want to work with want. Education based prospecting works really well when you know what the people you're trying to reach really want, and you provide them with a way to get that. A big mistake that many financial advisors make is they offer a seminar, but they either don't know enough about their market to know what they want or they position it in a way that doesn't even sound interesting to a prospect.
When you think about prospecting think about giving. Even when what your prospects want doesn't directly involve you there is an opportunity for you to connect with them by helping them to get it. And when you do that you increase your value to them by serving as the connecting point between what they want and how to get it.
Prospecting is about filtering out the people who aren't right for you and identifying the people who are right for you. Unless you want to work really hard let go of that "I can help everyone mentality". T get business you have to prospect, and if you have to prospect you need to learn how to do it right, and when you do you won't hate prospecting anymore.
About the Author
Author: Cheryl Clausen can help you get where you want to be. Look here to see how your Sales Skills measure up. Could you succeed faster if you just had more time? Enhance your Time Management Skills, check this out.