Nugget #7 - Prospecting is sorting, not selling.
This is a really important mental frame. It’s two different modes of thinking.
While selling you are aligning value to solve their specific problems. You need to know enough about the specific situations, problems, and impact of problems to your specific client. The selling is helping your client see for themselves they can achieve their goals and avoid bad outcomes with your solution.
You are not doing that when you are cold calling.
While prospecting you develop a deep understanding of the problems your solution best solves, create a hypothesis of who is most likely to have those problems, and find creative ways to get their attention to see if they are open minded to solving problems with you.
What you are not doing is trying to convince people they need to care about the problems you solve. You are sorting people into:
Believes they have problems we solve, interested in solving for them right now
Believes they have problems we solve, interested in solving for them later
Believes they have problems we solve, not interested in solving for them in foreseeable future
Does not believe they have problems we solve
Knows they do not have the problems we solve
As you become more exposed to sales strategies you will come across a model from the late great Chet Holmes, a renowned sales professional and author of The Ultimate Sales Machine. He popularized this idea of the Buyer’s Pyramid.
Over Chet’s career you will notice an average percentages of any active market. Think of these as rules of thumb for prospecting.
3% Buying Now
6-7% Open to It
30% Not Thinking About It
30% Don’t Think They’re Interested
30% Know They’re Not Interested
See how these pyramid sections map to the buckets you’re sorting clients into.
You are not talking people into their bucket/pyramid section. You are clarifying where they are & setting mutual expectations about how you will engage with them as they move through various buckets over time.
You keep a healthy pipeline by recognizing you can’t convince someone to be in a bucket they’re not already in.
Once you identify a client is in the 3% of the market that is actively in the market to buy then you are able to begin selling.
When you’re cold calling this week avoid the temptation to think you can sell people into the bucket you want. Listen, clarify, and engage appropriately. No pressure.