I recently started running again. It’s incredibly difficult to start running when you haven’t run in a long time. You don’t have the stamina, and your body hurts from the stress, especially your joints. And your form is poor, so you’re expending way too much energy for the actual speed at which you are running. At some point you start to get a little bit faster, and you start to feel a lot better. But that time doesn’t come quickly. About that time, you remember that you should never have stopped running in the first place.
This post is not about running. It’s about prospecting. Like running, once you stop, it’s incredibly difficult to get started again. When you do find the will to pick up the phone and make your calls, it doesn’t feel good. It’s been too long since you’ve taken these actions. And your results are poor. Sometimes your results are poor because you’re not calling the right people, having not made calls in such a long time. Other times your results are poor because you are so out of practice. Improvement doesn’t come easy. It takes time, effort, and energy to get your chops back.
This post is to remind you to never stop.
- When you have no work and desperately need new clients, you should spend your time prospecting. Whether you are engaging in virtual prospecting or face-to-face meetings, the key is consistency.
- When you’ve gotten a lot of work and your pipeline is full, you should still be prospecting Anything that is in your pipeline isn’t yet a deal, and you never know what the future holds.
- Even when you have more work than you can possibly handle and your operations team is complaining that you are outstripping their capacity, you should still be prospecting.
After you die, for the next four days you should still be prospecting, just in case. Seriously, don’t lose your momentum, lose your muscles, and lose your discipline. It’s more difficult to start over than it is to do the work you need to do today. Remember, in sales, you should never stop selling, and that includes never stopping your prospecting efforts.
