In sales, fast is slow and slow is fast. This means the more time you take to to be present, create value, and help your dream client, the faster things move forward. The faster you try to go and the more you try to “cram” relationships, trust-building, and moving through your process before serving your buyer’s needs, the slower things go.
There is a serious exception to this general principle: prospecting. When it comes to opening new relationships and creating opportunities, velocity matters a great deal, especially when many salespeople and sales organizations are opportunity starved.
The List
Imagine that someone provides you with a list. This list includes the name and phone number of 1,000 prospects. The person providing you that list tells you that there is no less than $5,000,000 in new sales in this list, all that revenue coming from prospects that are right in your sweet spot. All you have to do is accept the list, and start prospecting to collect the $5,000,000 in revenue.
How long does it take you to make the calls and find the $5,000,000 in revenue?
Slow Dialing
If you made 10 calls a day, or 50 calls a week, it would take you 20 weeks to make your first contact with every person on the list. Minus holidays and vacation, that’s about half a year.
Making 20 calls a day cuts your time in half. By making 100 calls a week, you make your calls in 10 weeks, less than a quarter of the year.
But we are looking at “dials” here, “attempted” calls, not actually conversations. The reality is that most of your calls are going to go to voicemail. Even if you leave an excellent message, you aren’t likely to get a lot of calls back.
If you were to dial 40 numbers a day, you’d be through your first attempt in 5 weeks. You’d have reached some percentage of the people you dialed and, depending on how effective you are on the phone, you’d have found opportunities, more if you’ve got chops, less if you don’t.
Your Real Math
Let’s assume you have a targeted list of 200 dream clients that are qualified, not some random list of 1,000 leads full of hidden opportunities. How long does it take you make it through that list?
The speed at which you prospect is the speed you open new relationships and create new opportunities. The slower you go, the less likely you are to have a killer pipeline, and the longer it takes you to build your book of business.
Fast is slow and slow is fast in human relationships. But faster is better when it comes to prospecting. In prospecting, you want velocity.
How long it takes you to succeed is a personal decision.
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