You probably don’t do enough prospecting. It’s likely that you are well aware of that fact. If you spent more time prospecting, more time cold calling and opening relationships, you would have more opportunities. You’d even have a stronger pipeline. But your resistance to prospecting keeps you from doing as well as you might.
Knowing all of this is true probably still isn’t enough for you to stop procrastinating. You may not even be motivated by the fact that your fiercest competitors are prospecting, and they are calling your existing client and dream clients (just ask them). There is a simple solution that makes prospecting easier.
Just start making calls.
If you run or do any aerobic exercise, you know how uncomfortable it is to get started. I say that the hardest climbing you ever do on a bicycle is actually climbing onto the bike to get started. It takes me 8 or 9 miles before my body starts to acclimate to the exercise. My friends that run tell me that it takes them 3 or 4 miles to finally get their body to adjust. That metaphor works for prospecting. It’s just like that.
The most difficult call you make is the first call. It has nothing to do with who you call or the outcome of that call. It has everything to do with overcoming the internal resistance to starting. Each call after the first gets easier. You adjust. You find your rhythm. It gets easier.
This is why it’s important to prospect early in the day. That’s when you have the mental focus and the greatest capacity to overcome your resistance. As the day goes on, you will find other work to take the place of prospecting, and the world will start making demands of you.
Questions
Do you find it true that once you get started doing something difficult it gets easier?
When do you have the most resolve to overcome your internal resistance to prospecting and cold calling?
How do you overcome your internal resistance? What do you tell yourself about why you must prospect and the price for failing to do so?
