This is what makes prospecting so difficult. For most of us, there are more non-prospects than there are prospects. There are also more prospects than dream clients. Even though there are enough dream clients for you to pursue, only some percentage of them will be compelled to change, and many more will actively resist change.
Prospecting is, in part, looking for the needle in the haystack.
If you don’t call on your prospective clients, then you are not getting any closer to finding a person or company that is compelled to change. If you don’t pursue your dream clients, you will never be far enough in front of an opportunity that you are considered as the likely successor to their existing partner. Instead, when they become dissatisfied, they’ll reach out to someone that has been nurturing them.
When you do the work of prospecting, you not only find prospects that are interested in exploring change, you also find your dream clients, some of whom are compelled to change now, recognizing that they need things to be better than they are. If you’re not in the haystack, you get nothing.
This is the defining difference between salespeople who create new opportunities and those who don’t. The opportunity creators do the work necessary to find prospects and dream clients they can help. Those who passively wait and hope that they get enough inbound leads that are already opportunities struggle, preferring to do account management work instead of sales work.
The needles are in the haystack. But they aren’t going to come and find you. Which means you are going to have to get in there and find them yourself.