To Target or to Prospect, That is the question!

It may seem as though I am simply parsing words, but nothing could be further from the truth. The intellectual laziness of some sales reps, makes it difficult to even have this conversation. Prospecting is a phrase used to describe the act of contacting people/companies that may have a use or a need for your product and/or service. This process seems to be standard everywhere we look. I mean, why not? Sales reps are paid to sell so making the initial contact behooves them right? What if I told you that having your sales reps prospect is like having your dentist operate on your heart? After all, they both went to medical school.

What if I told you that I can prove that this age old paradigm is predicated on a false premise?

The whole system is designed around one central idea. Sales reps are good at talking to people so therefore they should do all of the talking. There is a fundamental flaw in this logic. Talking to people is a very small part of this process called prospecting. It takes diligence, follow through, attention to detail, and patience. Are those attributes that you can attribute to very many sales people? The simple truth is that the very same psychological attributes that make sales people good at closing, run counter to the attributes required to be good at prospecting. Closing is an art of reading and reacting or qualifying and closing. Prospecting is a numbers game despite what anyone says. Follow up, follow up, and more follow up. Not exactly the same thing as driving conversation or the power of persuasion. In fact, the tendency of good sales people is to try and persuade at all times. That is our nature. That is exactly opposite of extrapolating details and creating customer profiles. The only reason sales people are even capable of any prospecting is that we have told them they must do it. It’s simply a function of adaptation. That does not make them good at it and even more to the point, why would you put a skill set conducive to closing deals in a far less profitable dynamic? Just because you have a pitcher that can hit ok, doesn’t mean you make them your designated hitter!

That brings us to Targeting. Companies that want to get to the next level must create a sales dynamic that allows particular skill sets to flourish. By doing so, you allow reps to sell, managers to manage, and people good at creating “purchasing profiles” to do so. Everyone wins and the company grows, NOW! The difference between targeting and prospecting is all in a word; homework. Doing a little homework on prospects is the easiest way to know how to sell them. Simply making blind contact may develop some business but it will also burn a lot of leads. Targeting is the act of finding out some basic things about a prospect before a sales rep gets involved. For example, are they using a competitor? Are they under contract? Do they have a need for your product/service? If not, can we create a need? These are just a few examples but I think you get the point. Armed with this information, reps can go out and focus on hitting targets!

All of this requires a much more in depth look at sales and requires real analysis. The other day my kid came from school with a backpack full of books and asked me why he had to do so much homework. I told him that it was so that later in life, he wouldn’t sound like an idiot! I was right then, and I am right now! When the goal is revenue, shouldn’t we do a little homework?