Fanatical Prospecting: The Ultimate Guide to Opening Sales Conversations and Filling the Pipeline by Leveraging Social Selling, Telephone, Email, Text, and Cold Calling

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Leveraging the Prospecting Pyramid

The only difference between a mob and a trained army is organization.

—Calvin Coolidge

When you get into the office in the morning and begin your prospecting block, which prospects do you call or touch first?

Last year I was hired by a company to develop a prospecting training program for their sales organization. The sales team was missing its number and the CEO was looking to my firm to help him reverse this trend.

My first step was to sit and watch the sales team make their morning prospecting calls. The team worked in a comfortable modern office environment and had a top-tier CRM that was packed full of prevetted prospects and contact records. They also had access to robust social media and business intelligence tools that offered deep insight into their prospective customers, and these tools were integrated into the CRM.

The director of sales expected his sales team to be on the phones qualifying and setting appointments starting at 8:00 AM. I introduced myself to the team and then took a seat in the corner and observed. In particular, I kept my eye on the sales rep in the cubicle closest to me.

After an hour of watching this rep, I asked him a simple question. “When you pick up the phone each morning, how do you know which prospect to call first?”

He looked confused by my question, and I could see the wheels turning as he searched for the “right” answer. Finally he replied, “I don't know. I just login to the CRM and start calling.” ...