SalesScore

In my opinion, prospecting is the number one ingredient to have a successful sales career. Not everyone is built for prospecting. It can be a tough, gut-wrenching and unpleasant activity. However, if you are going to stay in sales, and you want to reach a higher level of success, you need to turn this weakness into a strength.

Become emotionally detached when you prospect. Quit feeling the rejection personally. When someone rejects you, or they aren’t interested in what you have to offer, quit feeling that it’s personal. It isn’t. They are rejecting your company, not you. Develop the mindset that you are in the ‘third person’. You are trying to get an appointment for your company, not for you. Therefore, rejection is much easier to deal with.

Realize that if prospecting is the worst part or hardest part of your job, it’s really not a bad job. You could have a much worse job – and some people do. Think about all of the dirty, disgusting, terrible and limited opportunity jobs you might have to settle for if you were not in sales.

Set some prospecting goals. Your goals need to be time or activity oriented – not results-oriented. Thus, your goals should be how much time you spend prospecting every day, or how many dials you will make during the course of a day. Don’t base your goals on setting ‘X’ number of appointments. If you concentrate on time and activity, the results will take care of themselves.