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Ditch the failed sales tactics, fill your pipeline, and crush your number Fanatical Prospecting gives salespeople, sales leaders, entrepreneurs, and executives a practical, eye-opening guide that clearly explains the why and how behind the most important activity in sales and business development prospecting. The brutal fact is the number one reason for failure in sales is an empty pipe and the root cause of an empty pipeline is the failure to consistently prospect. By ignoring the muscle of prospecting, many otherwise competent salespeople and sales organizations consistently underperform. Step by step, Jeb Blount outlines his innovative approach to prospecting that works for real people, in the real world, with real prospects. Learn how to keep the pipeline full of qualified opportunities and avoid debilitating sales slumps by leveraging a balanced prospecting methodology across multiple prospecting channels. This book reveals the secrets, techniques, and tips of top earners. You ll learn: * Why the 30-Day Rule is critical for keeping the pipeline full * Why understanding the Law of Replacement is the key to avoiding sales slumps * How to leverage the Law of Familiarity to reduce prospecting friction and avoid rejection * The 5 C s of Social Selling and how to use them to get prospects to call you * How to use the simple 5 Step Telephone Framework to get more appointments fast * How to double call backs with a powerful voice mail technique * How to leverage the powerful 4 Step Email Prospecting Framework to create emails that compel prospects to respond * How to get text working for you with the 7 Step Text Message Prospecting Framework * And there is so much more! Fanatical Prospecting is filled with the high-powered strategies, techniques, and tools you need to fill your pipeline with high quality opportunities. In the most comprehensive book ever written about sales prospecting, Jeb Blount reveals the real secret to improving sales productivity and growing your income fast. You ll gain the power to blow through resistance and objections, gain more appointments, start more sales conversations, and close more sales. Break free from the fear and frustration that is holding you and your team back from effective and consistent prospecting. It's time to get off the feast or famine sales roller-coaster for good!
Χρόνος: 2015
Έκδοση: 1
Εκδότης: Wiley
Γλώσσα: english
Σελίδες: 304
ISBN 10: 1119144752
ISBN 13: 9781119144755
File: EPUB, 1.29 MB
Κατεβάστε (epub, 1.29 MB)

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Χρόνος: 1952
Γλώσσα: english
File: PDF, 60.34 MB


Praise for Fanatical Prospecting

Title Page




Special Note: Free Prospecting Resources

Chapter 1: The Case for Prospecting The Real Secret to Sustained Sales Success

In Search of the Easy Button

Stop Wishing That Things Were Easier and Start Working to Become Better

Chapter 2: Seven Mindsets of Fanatical Prospectors Success Leaves Clues

Chapter 3: To Cold Call or Not to Cold Call? The Fine Art of Interrupting

Stop Seeking the Easy Way Out and Start Interrupting and Engaging

Just Afraid to Make the Call—Not Cold Call

Chapter 4: Adopt a Balanced Prospecting Methodology The Fallacy of Putting All Your Eggs in One Basket

Avoid the Lunacy of One Size Fits All

Chapter 5: The More You Prospect, the Luckier You Get The Universal Law of Need

The 30-Day Rule

The Law of Replacement

The Anatomy of a Sales Slump

The First Rule of Sales Slumps

Chapter 6: Know Your Numbers: Managing Your Ratios Elite Athletes Know Their Numbers

You Cannot Be Delusional and Successful at the Same Time

Chapter 7: The Three Ps That Are Holding You Back Procrastination


Paralysis from Analysis

Disrupting the 3Ps

Chapter 8: Time: The Great Equalizer of Sales 24

Adopt a CEO Mindset

Protect the Golden Hours

The Fine Art of Delegation

Blocking Your Time Will Transform Your Career

Horstman's Corollary

Stick to Your Guns

Concentrate Your Power

Beware of the Ding

What Lurks in Your Inbox Can and Will Derail Your Sales Day

Leverage the Platinum Hours

Measure Your Worth

Chapter 9: The Four Objectives of Prospecting Prospecting Is a Contact Sport

Set an Appointment

Gather Information and Qualify

Define the Strike Zone

Close the Sale

Build Familiarity

Chapter 10: Leveraging the Prospecting Pyramid Walk Like an Egyptian: Managing the Prospecting Pyramid

Powerful Lists Get Powerful Results

Chapter 11: Own Your Database: Why the CRM Is Your Most Important Sales Tool Own It Like a CEO

A Trash Can or a Gold Mine

Chapter 12: The Law of Familiarity Prospecting Lubrication

The Five Levers of Familiarity

Chapter 13: Social Selling Social Selling Is Not a Panacea

The Social Selling Challenge

Social Selling Is Not Selling

Choosing the Right Social Channels

Five Objectives of Social Prospecting

Personal Branding

Building Familiarity

Inbound Prospecting Through Insight and Education

Leveraging Insight and Education to Power Up Strategic Prospecting

Trigger-Event and Buying-Cycle Awareness

Research and Information Gathering

Outbound Prospecting

The Five Cs of Social Selling

Social Media Prospecting Tools

Social Prospecting + Outbound Prospecting = A Powerful Combination

Chapter 14: Message Matters What You Say and How You Say It

Enthusiasm and Confidence

What You Say

WIIFM—The Power of Because

Bridging to the Because

The Secret to Crafting Powerful Bridges

Ask For What You Want

Assume You'll Get What You Want

Shut Up

Chapter 15: Telephone Prospecting Excellence Nobody Answers a Phone That Doesn't Ring

The Telephone Is, Has Always Been, and Will Continue to Be the Most Powerful Sales Prospecting Tool

Nobody Likes It; Get Over It

Most Salespeople Have Never Been Taught How to Use the Phone

The Ultimate Key to Success Is the Scheduled Phone Block

The Five-Step Simple Telephone Prospecting Framework

Leaving Effective Voice Mail Messages That Get Returned

Five-Step Voice Mail Framework to Double Callbacks

Timing Teleprospecting Calls Is a Losing Strategy

Just Eat the Frog

Chapter 16: Turning Around RBOs: Reflex Responses, Brush-Offs, and Objections Rejection Won't Roll Off Your Back

Reflex Responses, Brush-Offs, and Objections, Oh My!

Planning for the RBO

The Turnaround Framework

Putting It All Together

When the Horse Is Dead, Dismount

Chapter 17: The Secret Lives of Gatekeepers Seven Keys for Dealing with Gatekeepers

The Calling-Other-Extensions Hack

The Salespeople-Help-Salespeople Hack

The Go-Around-Back Hack

Chapter 18: In-Person Prospecting Limited Application of the In-Person Prospecting Call

The Five-Step Hub-and-Spoke Technique

Preparing for Effective In-Person Prospecting

The Five-Step In-Person Prospecting Call Process

Put Your Sales Goggles On

Chapter 19: E-Mail Prospecting The Three Cardinal Rules of E-Mail Prospecting

Rule #1: Your E-Mail Must Get Delivered

Rule #2: Your E-Mail Must Get Opened

Rule #3: Your E-Mail Must Convert

A Good Prospecting E-Mail Begins with a Great Plan

The Four Elements of an Effective Prospecting E-Mail

Practice, Practice, Practice

The Best Time to Send E-Mails

Pause Before You Press “Send”

Chapter 20: Text Messaging Texting as a Business Tool Is Accelerating

Familiarity Is Everything with Text

Use Text to Anchor Conversations at Networking Events

Use Text Following Trigger Events

Use Text to Nurture Prospects

Use Text to Create Opportunities for Engagement

Seven Rules for Structuring Effective Text Prospecting Messages

Chapter 21: Developing Mental Toughness It Takes Grit—You Have to Grind to Shine

Four Pillars of Mental Toughness in Sales

When You Are on Top, Attack Yourself

Chapter 22: Eleven Words That Changed My Life

Chapter 23: The Only Question That Really Matters


About the Author


End User License Agreement

List of Illustrations

Figure 10.1

Figure 15.1

Figure 15.2

Figure 16.1

Figure 18.1

Figure 18.2

Figure 19.1

Figure 19.2

Figure 19.3

Figure 20.1

Figure 20.2

Praise for Fanatical Prospecting

“Prospecting is the core, the foundation, the heart of every successful sales effort. Fanatical Prospecting leverages the prospecting success of author Jeb Blount, one of the most successful sales leaders of this decade, and provides answers to every aspect of successful prospecting.

“The techniques and concepts contained in Fanatical Prospecting are not theories from an ivory tower occupant or the ideological wishes of a university professor. This is a step-by-step field guide to every aspect of prospecting in the Internet era.

“Blount explains core principles of prospecting in a storytelling style that begs you to write in the margin and put your own action plan into place. Whether talking about ‘the 30 Day Rule’ or the difference between ‘Golden Hours’ and ‘Platinum Hours,’ he keeps his guidance at a personal level, understandable and easy to relate to. Clear, simple pillars like the Four Objectives of Prospecting ring true for any sales effort, in any industry and for every customer size.

“Straightforward, easy-to-follow visual maps of ‘five step guides’ for telephone prospecting, voice mail prospecting, and in-person prospecting will prove valuable throughout your entire career in sales and in sales management. I recommend buying two copies—one to read and one to write, draw, highlight, and add sticky notes to. It is that powerful.”

—Miles Austin, Publisher, FillTheFunnel.com

Law of the Universe: Nothing happens until something moves.

Law of Business: Nothing happens until someone sells something.

—Jeb Blount

Fanatical Prospecting

The Ultimate Guide for Starting Sales Conversations and Filling the Pipeline by Leveraging Social Selling, Telephone, E-Mail, and Cold Calling

Jeb Blount

Cover image: Gold © iStock.com/idal

Cover design: Wiley

Copyright © 2015 by Jeb Blount. All rights reserved


Published simultaneously in Canada.


Limit of Liability/Disclaimer of Warranty: While the publisher and author have used their best efforts in preparing this book, they make no representations or warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this book and specifically disclaim any implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. No warranty may be created or extended by sales representatives or written sales materials. The advice and strategies contained herein may not be suitable for your situation. You should consult with a professional where appropriate. Neither the publisher nor author shall be liable for any loss of profit or any other commercial damages, including but not limited to special, incidental, consequential, or other damages.

For general information on our other products and services or for technical support, please contact our Customer Care Department within the United States at (800) 762-2974, outside the United States at (317) 572-3993 or fax (317) 572-4002.


Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:

Blount, Jeb, author.

Fanatical prospecting : the ultimate guide for starting sales conversations and filling the pipeline by leveraging social selling, telephone, e-mail, and cold calling / Jeb Blount.

1 online resource.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record and CIP data provided by publisher; resource not viewed.

ISBN-13 978-1-119-14475-5 (cloth); ISBN 978-1-119-14477-9 (ePDF); ISBN 978-1-119-14476-2 (ePub)

1. Selling. 2. Business referrals. 3. Customer relations. I. Title.





For Bob Blackwell


For 25 years I've hoped for a book like Fanatical Prospecting, and never has this powerful message and valuable advice been needed more than it is today.

Like a prophet, Jeb Blount boldly points out the lies of the loud, popular nouveau sales “experts” whose deadly advice leads salespeople and sales leaders astray. These experts preach to all who will listen that prospecting—proactively pursuing prospects—no longer works. What's particularly dangerous about this false teaching is that it is exactly what the struggling, reactive salesperson wants to hear. Why do the hard work to prospect and self-generate new sales opportunities when some “guru” lets you off the hook by telling you that it's “old school” and “doesn't work anymore”? Why block time to pick up the phone if instead you can tweet, write blog posts, or play for hours posting comments in a LinkedIn group?

The truth, as Jeb so eloquently shares, is that there is no Easy Button in sales. There is no magic bullet or secret sauce. No one sales tool, gimmick, or mystical new process guaranteed to fill your pipeline. In spite of what the social selling Kool-Aid pushers and inbound marketing companies tell us, the truth is that top producers and sales superstars are fanatical prospectors who take personal responsibility for identifying and creating their own sales opportunities.

When a company's sales organization is failing to make its number or reach its potential, it is not because its salespeople can't present well, are ineffective closers, or lack the skills for offering insight or challenging prospects. It's rarely because of a deficit of talent. The reason most sales organizations are not making their numbers is that the pipeline is anemic because the sales team is not prospecting.

Prospecting not only still works, but it's the fastest and most effective way to accomplish exactly what this book's subtitle promises: opening sales conversations and filling the pipeline!

Jeb Blount knows prospecting. He is an authority on this subject because he was an all-star, record-setting salesperson and executive sales leader before building his own wildly successful sales training and talent management company. Today he transforms sales organizations by helping them accelerate performance and speaks to hundreds of companies across the globe each year that are eager to hear his inspiring message about what it takes to reach peak performance—fast.

In Fanatical Prospecting, Jeb leaves no stone unturned and holds nothing back. He shares why we need to prospect, exactly what to do, and how to do it.

New sales are the lifeblood of a business. Nothing is more important than securing discovery meetings, conversations, appointments, and sales calls with potential customers. And that is exactly why this is the most important book ever written on this topic.

If you are a sales leader or salesperson looking for help creating more new sales opportunities, then this book is for you. But be warned, once you read Fanatical Prospecting, there will be no more excuses. From understanding why and how we must interrupt prospects, to jealously guarding our precious golden hours for selling, Jeb provides a comprehensive guide to increase sales fast. There is practical, powerful advice on using every means (social selling, e-mail, telephone, text messaging, networking, referrals, in-person prospecting) available to start sales conversations and create new opportunities.

If you picked up this book because you've never prospected for new business or you are struggling to hit your numbers, congratulations. I promise that if you follow the prescription Jeb provides, your results are about to improve dramatically. And if, like me, you're a long-time believer in prospecting, this book will take your game to completely new levels.

—Mike Weinberg, The New Sales Coach and

author of New Sales. Simplified.

Special Note: Free Prospecting Resources

This is the longest book of the seven I've written and still, it was impossible to cover everything you need to know about prospecting. Also, with the shifting landscape of technology, prospecting tools, apps, and social media, things are changing so fast that I needed a place to keep you updated on tools, trends, and techniques that will give you an edge while filling your pipe.

So, I built FanaticalProspecting.com. There you will find dozens of free guides, articles, podcasts, videos, virtual training programs, and reports that supplement the book and expand your knowledge base. As a special bonus to thank you for purchasing this book, you get free access (valued at $499) to these resources.

You'll find a special, exclusive code that gives you free Pro-Level access located in Chapter 7.


The Case for Prospecting

There are bad salespeople, mediocre salespeople, good salespeople, consistent salespeople, and then there are Superstars. The elusive talent that companies and sales organizations spend billions of dollars to identify, recruit, retain, and emulate—the coveted top 20 percent that produce 80 percent of sales.

Superstars outearn other salespeople—taking home almost all of the available commissions and bonuses. They win the trips, prizes, spiffs, and the recognition that the also-rans so badly crave.

They are not one-hit wonders. Superstars deliver year in and year out and tend to stay on top over the long haul.

Superstars are good at selling. They've got the talent and the skills. They're competitive and have the drive to perform. They understand how to manage the sales process, ask great questions, deliver winning presentations, and close the deal. They have exceptional people savvy, high emotional intelligence, and a winning mindset.

But, here's the thing: So do lots of salespeople. Lots of salespeople possess the drive and hunger to succeed. Lots of salespeople have the intelligence, talent, skills, and education to be top performers. Lots of salespeople are competitive, understand the sales process, and know how to ask for the business. Yet they consistently underperform the superstars.

That's what leaves so many salespeople and executives scratching their heads and wondering how the elite top 20 percent produce such massive results year in and year out. It's why:

HR managers are frustrated that their complex and expensive hiring assessments aren't as predictive of sales success as promised.

Legions of academic researchers spin their wheels searching for the holy grail of sales that they believe will magically turn all salespeople into top performers, and why corporate executives eagerly consume their flavor-of-the-day promises.

CSOs and sales VPs chase one fad after another, desperately clinging to the latest expert who wins the annual “everything-in-sales-has-changed” beauty contest, in hopes of reviving their failing sales organization.

So many salespeople and entrepreneurs yearn for the secret to gaining income stability through real, lasting success in sales, yet that secret always seems just out of reach.

The Real Secret to Sustained Sales Success

The path to superstar-level success in sales is brutally simple. Simple, mind you, not easy. It's a Paradox of Basics: A truth that is so blatantly obvious it has become impossibly invisible. A truth that remains frustratingly elusive for most salespeople, causing so many promising, intelligent, talented people to fail miserably in sales, and, likewise, businesses to close their doors and entrepreneurs to crash and burn.

What's the secret that separates superstars from everyone else, and why do they consistently outperform other salespeople? Fanatical prospecting.

Superstars are relentless, unstoppable prospectors. They are obsessive about keeping their pipeline full of qualified prospects. They prospect anywhere and anytime—constantly turning over rocks looking for their next opportunity. They prospect day and night—unstoppable and always on. Fanatical!

My favorite definition of the word fanatical is “motivated or characterized by an extreme, uncritical enthusiasm.”1

Superstars view prospecting as a way of life. They prospect with single-minded focus, worrying little about what other people think of them. They enthusiastically dive into telephone prospecting, e-mail prospecting, cold calling, networking, asking for referrals, knocking on doors, following up on leads, attending trade shows, and striking up conversations with strangers.

They don't make excuses: “Oh, this is not a good time to call because they might be at lunch.”

They don't complain: “Nobody is calling me back.”

They don't whine: “The leads are bad.”

They don't live in fear: “What if she says no?” Or “What if this is a bad time?”

They don't procrastinate: “I don't have time right now. I'll catch up tomorrow.”

They prospect when times are good because they know that a rainy day is right around the corner.

They prospect when times are bad because they know that fanatical prospecting is the key to survival.

They prospect even when they don't feel like prospecting because they are driven to keep their pipeline full.

Fanatical prospectors carry around a pocket full of business cards. They talk up strangers in doctors' offices, at sporting events, in line to get coffee, in elevators, at conferences, on planes, trains, and anywhere else they can get face to face with potential customers.

They get up in the morning and bang the phone. During the day they knock on doors. In between meetings they prospect with e-mail and text. At night they connect with and engage prospects on social media. Before they quit for the day they make even more calls.

The enduring mantra of the fanatical prospector is: One more call.

Prospecting is the air they breathe. They don't whine like babies about not having enough leads or cry at the coffee machine with all of the losers about how they don't understand why no one is buying today. They don't blame the sales manager, company, products, services, or economy. They get moving, take responsibility, and own their territory. They generate their own leads and through hard work, determination, and perseverance, their own luck.

Superstars are aware that failure in sales is not caused by a deficit of talent, skills, or training. Not a poor territory or inferior product. Not subpar communication and presentation skills. Not a failure to ask for the business and close. Not terrible sales managers.

The brutal fact is the number one reason for failure in sales is an empty pipe, and, the root cause of an empty pipeline is the failure to prospect.

Yet countless salespeople and sales leaders who marvel at the consistent year-in-and-year-out performance of superstars are blind to the real reason for their success. Unwilling to accept that the foundational root of all success in sales is a fanatical focus on prospecting, they waste time tilting at windmills on their quixotic pursuit of fads, silver bullets, and secret formulas they believe will deliver them into the arms of success with little effort.

In Search of the Easy Button

“Lose weight effortlessly,” the announcer says over an image of models admiring their ripped abs. “With this revolutionary, breakthrough pill you'll never have to worry about your weight again. Eat what you want. Forget about exercise. Just take this pill and you'll have the body of your dreams.”

If these commercials didn't work, the companies that run them would quit. But they do work.

In his book, Spartan Up: A Take No Prisoners Guide to Overcoming Obstacles and Achieving Peak Performance, Joe De Sena explains that “easy is the greatest marketing hook of all time.” So companies promise, again and again, that you can lose weight, flip houses, or get rich with no pain, no sacrifice, and no effort. Their phones ring off the hook, even though intuitively, most people know these promises are overhyped and not true. It is just human nature to seek the easy way out.

It is disappointing to observe how many salespeople today have this attitude—always looking for an easy way out. They have somehow deluded themselves into believing that they are owed something. They whine and complain endlessly about their company, prospects, leads, coworkers, CRM, product, prices, and on and on.

This is the brutal truth: In sales you are owed nothing! You've got to get your ass up and go out there and make things happen yourself. You have to pick up the phone, knock on doors, make presentations, and ask for business. Sales is not a nine-to-five job. There are no days off. No vacations. No lunch breaks. The great salespeople are skipping meals and doing deals—whatever it takes to win.

This mindset is the difference between driving a Mercedes or a Hyundai. Wearing a Rolex or a Timex. Savoring a juicy, bone-in, prime, cowboy rib eye in a five-star restaurant or surviving on ramen noodles. It's the difference between watching a 60-inch, flat-screen, ultra high-def TV or sock puppets on a 12-inch flea market hand-me-down.

In sales there will always be something to complain about. That is just how it is. There will be obstacles, roadblocks, bad managers, rude prospects, product and service challenges, and changes to the commission plan. There will always be rejection. There will always be hard work. You can sit around and complain and whine, but trust me, you are only hurting yourself.

It is critical that you awaken from the delusion that somehow you are going to be able to make prospecting easier and come to grips with the truth: If you had a choice between prospecting and swimming with sharks, you would choose the sharks.

The first step toward building an endless pipeline of new customers is acknowledging the truth and stepping back from your emotional need to find Easy Street. In sales, easy is the mother of mediocrity, and in your life, mediocrity is like a broke uncle. Once he moves into your house, it is nearly impossible to get him to leave.

The next step is keeping it real. In sales, business, and life, there are only three things you can control:

Your Actions

Your Reactions

Your Mindset

That's it. Nothing more. So instead of whining about the things that are out of your control, focus your energy on what you can control—your attitude, choices, emotions, goals, ambitions, dreams, desires, and discipline (choosing between what you want now and what you want most).

Stop Wishing That Things Were Easier and Start Working to Become Better

Developing a fanatical prospecting mindset starts with coming to grips with the fact that prospecting is hard, grueling, rejection-dense work.

There is no sugarcoating it. Prospecting sucks. This is why so many salespeople don't do it and instead spend their time and energy seeking silver bullets, secret formulas, and shortcuts, or ignore prospecting all together until it is too late.

However, if you dream of having a superstar income and living a superstar lifestyle, you must face the reality that prospecting sucks and get over it. To get what you want, you must prospect consistently.

Jim Rohn once said that you shouldn't wish that things were easier; you should wish that you were better. That's the promise I make to you. When you adopt the techniques in this book, you will get better.

Will the techniques I teach you in this book make you a more efficient prospector? Absolutely. I will teach you how to get more prospecting done in less time so that you can get back to the fun part of selling: meeting customers, discovery, presentations, proposals, negotiation, closing deals, and cashing commission checks.

Will the techniques I teach you in this book make you a more effective prospector? You can count on it. I will teach you how to get the highest return on the time you invest in prospecting. You will learn how to balance prospecting using multiple methodologies and gain insight on how to engage qualified prospects in sales conversations and get them into your pipeline. You'll get better results, open doors you thought would always be closed to you, and ultimately close more sales.

Will the techniques I teach you eliminate rejection, make prospecting more palatable (to use the words of one author who promises that prospecting can be “fun and easy”), make it painless, or remove the emotional and mental roadblocks that lead to prospecting procrastination?

Nope. Not a chance.

I will not lie to you about prospecting. I am not going to promise you that I will make prospecting easier, eliminate rejection, or turn it into something that you will learn to love. Only you can make the decision to do the hard work, pick up the phone, approach strangers, and get past your own mental hang-ups. The choice to act, the choice to adopt a new mindset, is yours and yours alone.

Here's the brutal truth: There is no easy button in sales. Prospecting is hard, emotionally draining work, and it is the price you have to pay to earn a high income.

How do I know this? I've been selling in the trenches my entire life. I've got trophy cases full of awards for my sales achievements. I started a successful multimillion-dollar business from the ground up and survived and thrived because my only option was to pick up the phone and start dialing. I am considered a leading expert on sales because of these accomplishments, and people pay me big bucks just to teach them the things I know. I've made millions of dollars in commissions. Bought big houses, boats, cars, and all of the toys a successful career in sales affords.

All of this was courtesy of fanatical prospecting. All of it! Yet, even though I know what brought me to the dance, even though I am fully aware that prospecting generates my income, the truth is prospecting is still the hardest, most mentally exhausting part of my sales day. There is always something more fun I would rather do, and although I know it will never get easier, the one thing that separates me from most other people is this: I get over it and do it anyway.


Seven Mindsets of Fanatical Prospectors

We like to think of our champions and idols as superheroes who were born different from us. We don't like to think of them as relatively ordinary people who made themselves extraordinary.

—Carol S. Dweck, Mindset: The New Psychology of Success

Merriam-Webster dictionary defines mindset as “a mental attitude or inclination.” It can also be defined as “a mood, disposition, inclination, or intention” (reference.com).

Mindset is completely and absolutely within your control and drives both the actions you take and your reactions to the environment and people around you.

Success Leaves Clues

Success leaves clues. Highly successful people, from ancient philosophers like Aristotle to modern-day thought leaders, have always made the point that there is little need to “reinvent the wheel.” If you study what successful people do, you find patterns. When you duplicate those patterns, you'll be able to duplicate their success.

Developing and maintaining a fanatical prospecting mindset is the ultimate key to success in sales. This mindset keeps you focused, persistent, and driven to open doors in the face of inevitable setbacks, challenges, and rejection. When you adopt a fanatical prospecting mindset, you'll grow in the face of adversity rather than shrink before it.

I've spent a lifetime studying fanatical prospectors. Along the way I discovered seven core mindsets that define them. These are their success clues. Duplicate these mindsets and you'll guarantee yourself success in filling your pipeline and crushing your number.

Optimistic and enthusiastic: Fanatical prospectors have a winning, optimistic mindset. They know that negative, bitter people with a victim mindset do not succeed in sales. Fanatical prospectors attack each day with enthusiasm—fired up and ready to rock. They view each day as a fresh new opportunity to achieve. Because of this, they seize the day, brush past naysayers and complainers, and dive into prospecting with unequaled drive. Even on bad days they reach deep inside and find enough stored enthusiasm to push themselves to keep going and make one more call.

Competitive: Fanatical prospectors view prospecting through the eyes of a fierce competitor. They are hardwired to win and will do whatever it takes to stay on top. They begin each day prepared to win the battle for the attention of the most coveted prospects, and outwit and outhustle their competitors at every turn.

Confident: Fanatical prospectors approach prospecting with confidence. They expect to win and believe they are going to win. They have developed mental toughness and the ability to manage the disruptive emotions of fear, uncertainty, and doubt. They leverage confidence and self-control to persuade prospects to give up time and resources to engage in sales conversations.

Relentless: Fanatical prospectors have a high need for achievement. They do whatever it takes to reach their goal. They never, ever give up believing that persistence always wins. They use rejection as motivational fuel to get up and keep going with a determined belief that their next “yes” is right around the corner.

Thirsty for knowledge: Fanatical prospectors welcome feedback and coaching. They seek out every opportunity to learn and invest in themselves by voraciously consuming books, podcasts, audiobooks, blog posts, online training, live seminars, and anything else they believe will make them better. They have an unshakable belief that everything happens for a reason and through this lens view setbacks as opportunities to learn and grow.

Systematic and efficient: Fanatical prospectors have the ability to execute with near-robotic and systematical efficiency. They are skilled at their craft like a pro athlete. They protect the golden hours, block their time, and concentrate their power to tune out distractions and avoid disruptions. They systematically develop their prospect database to build more effective and targeted lists, and squeeze every moment from each sales day.

Adaptive and flexible: Fanatical prospectors have acute situational awareness. Because of this, they are able to respond and adapt quickly to changing situations and circumstances. They leverage the three As in their approach to prospecting: adopt, adapt, adept. They actively search out and adopt new ideas and best practices, then adapt them as their own, and work at it until they become adept at execution. Fanatical prospectors are constantly trying new things and flexing with the world around them—whatever it takes to keep their pipeline full. They tend to be early adopters of new prospecting techniques, cutting-edge technology, and game-changing tactics.

Look around you. I guarantee that you will find that the highest-earning sales professionals in your town, city, networking groups, and company are fanatical prospectors. From insurance to real estate to industrial products to software to mobile to autos to trucks to medical device and pharmaceutical—in every industry and every company—they share these seven mindsets.

As you move forward through this book, use these seven mindsets as a foundational reference point to assess where you have room to grow and further develop your mindset.


To Cold Call or Not to Cold Call?


—William Shakespeare, Hamlet

It seems these days that everywhere you look there is some so-called expert pontificating that cold calling is dead. This is usually an inbound marketing, Sales 2.0, social-selling-obsessed nitwit with an agenda and a vested interest in telling you that everything you thought you knew about sales prospecting is “old school”—except their narrow version of “new school.” By vested interest, I mean they've got something they want to sell you that promises to fill your pipe with no fuss, no muss, no rejection, and little effort.

These folks pander to the sales masses' desire to stop cold calling. You've seen the ads and headlines plastered everywhere: “Never cold call again!” Buy their system and you'll be set free of the burden of reaching out and touching prospective customers.

With their top-secret system, you'll happily and painlessly blog and post on social media sites, and prospects who are already 70 percent (or 57 percent or 68 percent or whatever the latest statistic is these days) through the sales process—all by themselves—will miraculously call you at exactly the right time. You'll answer the phone or check your e-mail or social inbox and boom—closed deal. It's easy, they'll tell you. Why work hard when, with their little magic pill, you can just kick back, relax, and wait for the phone to ring.

Welcome to Fantasy Island.

Likewise, there are experts who bill themselves as cold-calling queens and kings. They preach loudly that cold calling is the real key to prospecting success and offer top-secret formulas they say will eliminate rejection, cause your targeted prospects to swoon when you call, and guarantee your success.

It feels like the sales profession's twisted version of a Shakespearian play: to cold call or not to cold call.

Give me a break!

The Fine Art of Interrupting

So the gurus and thought leaders rage on over whether to cold call or not to cold call. But their bluster is really just an inane argument focused on semantics of degrees—cold, warm, smoldering, hot, smoking hot—and mostly centered on how to avoid ever having to make an outbound call to a prospect again.

This is why I'm going to let you in on the truth—the real truth that all of these so-called experts continue to ignore, and it has nothing to do with cold calling.

Here's the deal.

If you want sustained success in your sales career, if you want to maximize your income, then you've got to interrupt prospects. You'll have to pick up the phone, walk in the door, send an e-mail or text message, or ping a prospect on LinkedIn, Twitter, Google+, or Facebook and interrupt someone who is not expecting you to contact them (i.e., you don't have an appointment or they are not waiting for you to call or write) and with whom you are not currently engaged in a sales discussion.

You can argue the degrees, warm, hot, cold, whatever. It could be a prospect that filled out one of your web forms or downloaded your latest white paper. Maybe they just connected with you online. It could be an old customer you are trying to reactivate, or a prospect in your defined database, or a new business that you've stopped by to qualify, or a prospect you met at a trade show.

No matter the circumstance, the simple fact remains that you are interrupting their day to talk about something you want them to hear, do, or buy, and you do not have a scheduled appointment with them to have that conversation.

This is what gets missed in all of the useless noise about how cold calling is dead. All of the talking heads who promise an easy way out if you'll just join their little cult ignore the real reason that prospecting is so hard, no matter how you choose to do it. It has never been about degree of the call; it is has always been about the willingness on the part of the salesperson to interrupt.

Which, by the way, is why most sales reps protest so loudly and will do anything to avoid making an outbound call. It is so much easier to speak to someone who is calling you.

The problem is, most companies can't create enough qualified inbound leads to keep the pipeline full. And, by the way, the reps that work for companies that do generate enough inbound leads to keep the phones ringing are making far less than sales pros who are reaching out and interrupting prospects to create opportunities.

Case in point, I have one client that spends $1.2 million a month to generate leads for their inbound sales team. It is still not enough. Those reps are idle more than half of the time. The only way they can achieve their number is to make targeted outbound calls.

Another client has a robust inbound-marketing and social-selling process that generates a consistent stream of leads. However, the biggest and most lucrative prospects in their marketplace, the ones they need to sell to achieve their goals, rarely respond to inbound-marketing or social-selling efforts. They have no reason to engage this way. Their accounts are so lucrative, there's always a long line of salespeople knocking on the door. The only way to start a sales conversation with these high-value prospects is to interrupt them.

Stop Seeking the Easy Way Out and Start Interrupting and Engaging

It is difficult and awkward to interrupt someone's day.

You can't control their response. That unknown leaves us vulnerable and causes fear.

Your prospect's initial reaction to being interrupted—usually a brush-off or reflex response in a not-so-friendly tone of voice—feels like rejection. As a human it is natural to abhor rejection; we are social creatures at heart who desire to be accepted.

These are the core reasons mediocre salespeople spend an inordinate amount of time finding excuses not to prospect rather than just doing it.

This past year one of my clients wanted to set up an outbound prospecting team to call and reactivate dormant customers. They hired a few young, inexperienced reps to make the calls.

While training them, I observed the reps obsess over the unknowns, the “what ifs” of the highly qualified “warm” calls. They wanted to be sure they had all of their ducks in a row before they ever picked up the phone. They hesitated and agonized. Planning to plan to plan to call.

But these were not calls to strangers. We were calling people who had done business with the company in the past. There was history here. In fact, the calls were warm lay-ups. Yet, the two reps demonstrated the exact same anxiety I've observed in reps who were calling complete strangers—in degrees, very cold prospects.

So I demonstrated by grabbing the list, picking up the phone, and dialing numbers. The customers who answered the phone were receptive, and other than being initially irritated at being interrupted, took time to talk to me about their next buying window. Over the course of 25 dials, three of these former customers indicated that they were ready to buy again.

Once the reps learned how to interrupt those inactive customers and initiate sales conversations, they became phenomenally successful, going on to produce, as a team, $100,000 each week in sales. This, by the way, became my client's most successful new sales initiative of the year, and they have expanded the outbound team and are now attacking the entire database.

I observe salespeople demonstrate this same behavior pattern with hot prospects (prospects that have been generated via inbound marketing efforts, referrals, or trade shows and are extremely receptive). I even see the pattern when current customers are being called for cross-sell opportunities. These salespeople agonize, procrastinate, and stare at the phone—afraid to pick it up.

A few months back I was working with a group of insurance agents from one of the most well-known companies in the industry. They were tasked with calling a list of clients that were already doing business with their agency. The objective was simple: Set an appointment with the client to review their coverages and ensure there were no gaps. The goal of the appointment was to find opportunities to cross-sell additional financial products where it made sense.

This was a low-impact call to a current client. The approach was simple:

“Hi, Roger, this is Jeb from XYZ agency. The reason I'm calling is, in reviewing your current coverages, I noticed that you have your cars and home insured with us, but we don't have an umbrella liability policy set up for you. I want to schedule a short meeting with you to review your current situation and identify any coverage gaps that could create a risk for you and your family. How about Thursday morning at 11 AM?”

Yet the agents had come up with every excuse in the book for not making the calls. One even complained to me that “he didn't ‘sign up’ for cold calling.” I politely explained that calling a current client—someone who is already doing business with you, familiar with you, and most likely to take your call—was about as far from cold calling as Perth, Australia, is from New York City.

Just Afraid to Make the Call—Not Cold Call

Today most people, including the experts and the insurance agent I mentioned above, have no idea what a cold call really is. They think that any outbound call or visit is a cold call.

They've turned the fear and anxiety they feel about interrupting prospects into a hobgoblin and relabeled it “cold calling.” This has provided the perfect excuse to sit and wait for prospects to interrupt them instead—and, of course, complain about not having enough leads.

It is not the “cold” call that is hard; it is the interrupting. Reps are just afraid to make the call, not the cold call.

Now, for sure, some prospects will be more receptive than others. A prospect who fills out your web form will be easier to speak to than a prospect you are contacting with no pretense. A prospect who is familiar with your name from social media may be more engaged than a prospect you found via a Google alert and contacted through their switch board. A prospect who has a contract expiring with your competitor will be more likely to engage in a conversation than a prospect who just signed a new contract. If you are calling a former customer, you'll likely receive a better reception than from a prospect who has never purchased from you or your company.

Interrupting your prospect's day is a fundamental building block of robust sales pipelines. No matter your prospecting approach, if you don't interrupt relentlessly, your pipeline will be anemic.

So the question is not, to cold call or not to cold call.

Instead, the question is how to strategically balance prospecting across the various prospecting channels to give you a competitive advantage when interrupting prospects in the crowded, competitive marketplace.


Adopt a Balanced Prospecting Methodology

Poor people choose now. Rich people choose balance.

—T. Harv Eker, Secrets of the Millionaire Mind

“But Jeb,” Janice said emphatically, “I'm so much better in person!”

It was a refrain I'd heard hundreds of times from salespeople who were quick to tell me that they were so much better at one type of prospecting than another.

The “I'm so much better at…” excuse is just that: an excuse to avoid other prospecting techniques that salespeople find unpalatable. More often than not, it's an excuse to avoid phone prospecting.

The pipeline always reveals the truth. Salespeople who gravitate to a single prospecting methodology seriously sub-optimize their productivity.

I can guarantee that when the words, “But you don't understand, I'm so much better at…” come out of a salesperson's mouth in response to a prospecting technique I've just introduced, that salesperson is underperforming against their number and cheating themselves out of thousands of dollars in commissions.

The Fallacy of Putting All Your Eggs in One Basket

Imagine that a friend comes to you seeking advice on investing for retirement. They explain that they went to a financial seminar where an investment “guru” presented a “sure-thing stock.” The guru advised that they immediately move their entire nest egg into this stock. What would you tell them?

If you were a good friend, you would be incredulous. “Putting your money into a single stock is stupid. You'll lose your retirement money!” you'd exclaim.

“But the guy says this investment is a sure thing,” your friend responds emphatically. “He says I can make a ton of money!”

You grab him by the collar and shake him. “Are you kidding me? Are you a moron? There are no sure things in investing. That's why sane people do something called diversification—they spread their money out across multiple investments to reduce their risk. This guy is feeding you a line of bull. If you follow this advice, you're courting financial disaster.”

In sales, consistently relying on a single prospecting methodology (usually the one you feel generates the least amount of resistance and rejection), at the expense of others, consistently generates mediocre results. However, balancing your prospecting regimen based on your industry, product, company, territory, and tenure in your territory gives you a statistical advantage that almost always leads to higher performance and income over the long term.

Not unlike investing, there is an expert or so-called sales guru on every corner preaching to salespeople that their method is the one way to prospecting salvation. They push phone prospecting, e-mail prospecting, social selling, trade shows, referrals, networking, or inbound marketing as the one true way while disparaging all other forms—usually by labeling the forms they don't like “cold calling” to create the ultimate turnoff. “Do it my way,” they'll tell you, “and you'll get unlimited qualified leads. All for only $999!”

These promises and your own justifications that “I'm just so much better at…” sound good in a seminar, book, webinar, article, and in your own head. But in the real world, where real salespeople actually have to engage prospects, make a number, feed families, pay mortgages, and buy food, it rarely works out over the long haul.

Avoid the Lunacy of One Size Fits All

Think of me as your friend grabbing you by the collar shaking you into reality. Putting all your prospecting eggs into a single basket is stupid. It's career suicide. Using the “I'm better at…” excuse to run from prospecting techniques you don't like is short-sighted.

The foundation of a winning prospecting strategy is balance.

The very best salespeople have mastered balanced prospecting in the same manner that wealthy people have mastered balance in their investment portfolios. Balance simply means that to get the best return from your prospecting time investment, there should be a mixture of telephone, in-person, e-mail, social selling, text messaging, referrals, networking, inbound leads, trade shows, and cold calling. The relative distribution of your time investment in each prospecting methodology should be based on your unique situation.

There isn't a one-size-fits-all formula for balanced prospecting. Every territory, industry, product, service, and prospect base is different. As are the demands of the sales plan, economic drivers, and the strategy and direction of the business—all of which are certain to change over time. It's also important to have a clear understanding of where you are against your goals because that may also determine the appropriate mix of prospecting channels.

For example, in some industries or with certain products or services, if you spend the majority of your time cold calling rather than professional networking, you will fail. In others, if you don't prospect in person, you will die a quick and painful death. In some verticals, referrals are everything, and in others, trade shows deliver the highest-quality prospects.

Social selling might be a primary driver in a consulting business, while inbound marketing might carry a heavier weight with certain software products. If you work for a large company, you may have a ready-made database of prospects, and the telephone and e-mail are the most efficient and effective channels for getting in doors. If you work for a small company or a start-up, you'll need to balance your prospecting to both build your database with long-term opportunities and fill the pipe with deals you can close now.

The key is designing your prospecting regimen based on what works best in your industry and with your product, service, deal complexity, customer base, and tenure. In some cases, this may even be market or geographic specific. For instance, in high-density zip codes like Manhattan or downtown Chicago, you may be more efficient and effective prospecting in person rather than via phone.

Likewise, tenure in your territory matters. If you are new to sales, new to your company, or have just taken over a new territory, your balance of prospecting techniques will likely need to be different than that of a tenured rep who has been in the same territory for years.

In fact, this is how many rookies get themselves into big trouble. They see Joe, the 20-year veteran, generating million-dollar months with what appears to be little effort. Then they emulate this behavior. On their way to failure, they miss the fact that Joe spent years qualifying his database and now he is tuned into his prospects' buying windows and knows exactly when to engage them. The rookies fail to understand that Joe's success was paid for in advance with years of fanatical prospecting.

If you are brand new in your territory, company, or industry, you must be prepared to pick up the phone and do lots of dialing or hit the streets and do lots of knocking. You may have to do a good bit of cold calling to qualify and build your database. On the other hand, if you have been in your territory or industry for years, it is likely that cold calling will become a smaller portion of your prospecting balance while referrals, social selling, lead nurturing, and timely calls to qualified prospects who are moving into the buying window will become your primary focus.

Look around you. Find out what the top salespeople in your organization are doing to generate qualified prospects. Then do what they do. The sale pros who are bringing home the big commission checks know the formula. Beware, though. If you sell to small and mid-market accounts and adopt the same prospecting regimen as the regional account executives or enterprise account managers, you'll likely fail.

Striking a balanced approach with prospecting is the most effective means of filling your sales pipeline no matter your industry product or service. With few exceptions, the combination of multiple techniques and channels is the most effective path to building a winning pipeline.


The More You Prospect, the Luckier You Get


—Dale Carnegie

The unrelenting daily imperative for every salesperson is keeping the pipeline full of qualified prospects.

Top sales professionals spend as much as 80 percent of their time on prospecting and qualifying activities for one important reason: They want to get up to the plate often and put together a consistent string of singles, doubles, triples, and a few home runs.

There are three core laws of prospecting that, when heeded, will ensure that you are moving a steady stream of prospects into the pipe:

The Universal Law of Need

The 30-Day Rule

The Law of Replacement

In this chapter, we discuss the implications of these universal laws for success in sales. You will also learn why ignoring these laws causes sales slumps and how to get out of a slump if you find yourself in one.

The Universal Law of Need

It is when pipelines are empty that salespeople find themselves face to face with the Universal Law of Need. The Universal Law of Need governs desperation. It states that the more you need something, the less likely it is that you will get it. This law comes into play in sales when lack of activity has left your pipeline depleted.

When all of your hope for survival rests on one, two, or even a handful of accounts, the probability of failure increases exponentially.

Consider Jerry. His prospecting is inconsistent at best. Several of the deals he was counting on and put into his forecast pushed off decisions to next quarter or were lost to a competitor. Because of this, he has only a handful of viable opportunities left in his pipeline. Now, with the end of the quarter looming, Jerry is under tremendous pressure. He desperately needs one of these deals to close. As Jerry becomes more desperate to close anything, he comes face to face with a cruel reality: Desperation magnifies and accelerates failure and virtually guarantees that he won't close the deals he must have to survive.

There are several reasons why desperation increases the probability that Jerry will fail when he needs to succeed the most. The first is that desperation taps into the downside of the Law of Attraction, which states that what you focus your thoughts on, you are most likely to get. When you are desperate, you no longer focus your thoughts on what is required for success. Instead, you focus on what will happen to you if you don't get what you need, thereby attracting failure.

The next problem with desperate need is that other people can sense your desperation. Through your actions, tone of voice, words, and body language, you send the message that you are desperate and weak. Prospects and customers naturally repel salespeople who are needy, desperate, and pathetic. Instead, they gravitate toward sales professionals who exude confidence. When you reek of the foul stench of desperation, people don't want to do business with you.

Finally, when you are desperate, you become emotional and act illogically, which causes you to make poor decisions. These poor decisions exacerbate an already bad situation, leaving you stressed, miserable, and digging a deeper hole.

In contrast to Jerry, Sandra is consistently prospecting, networking, gaining referrals, and systematically moving her accounts through her pipeline. Her hard work has resulted in more than 30 opportunities in her funnel.

Will they all close? Not likely. However, Sandra feels little pressure. She is consistently replacing the prospects that fall out of her pipeline and as a result, her sales have been regular, predictable, and on target. She knows exactly what she will close tomorrow, next week, and next month and she has earned her sales manager's trust because she keeps her forecast promises.

Under little pressure, she gets a huge boost when several of the accounts in her pipeline that were long shots suddenly go her way. She blows away her quota and earns a huge bonus. Sandra didn't need this extra sales gravy, yet, because she was disciplined in her activity, it fell right into her lap.

The 30-Day Rule

“Hey, Jeb, got a minute?” The voice on the line was familiar.

“Sure, Greg, what's up?” Greg is a sales pro who lives in my town. We've known each other for years.

“I was wondering if you might have a minute to talk.”

I was stuck in traffic on the parking lot called I-285 in Atlanta and had nowhere to go, so Greg started telling me his story. He explained that for some reason nothing he was working on was closing. He was getting frustrated, feeling that he'd lost his edge, and looking for tips that would help him get some deals closed. It was early March and he was worried that he was going to end up having a bad quarter. Slumps can quickly erode confidence and create a feeling of desperation.

“Greg,” I asked, “just by chance are you calling the same prospects over and over? And are these prospects the same ones you were trying to close in February?”

“Yes. They keep putting me off. I was wondering if you might have some closing techniques or something I can say to get them to pull the trigger.”

“Greg, this is going to sound like a weird question, so bear with me. How much were you working in December?”

“Well, we had a lot going on in December and I didn't get in as much time as I had hoped. We also took a couple of weeks off at the end of the year. You know how it is around the holidays.”

“So you weren't doing as much prospecting as usual?”

There was silence on the other end of the line. “Oh, crap, Jeb—the 30-Day Rule! I didn't even see it.”

Greg didn't have a closing problem; he had a prospecting problem. He'd stopped prospecting in December and it was biting him in the rear in March. However, because his activity gap happened way back in December, he didn't immediately connect it to his slump in March. To him it felt like a closing issue. Because he treated his slump as a closing technique issue rather than a prospecting issue, he continued to call on stale, dead-end prospects over and over again, unwilling to mentally admit that those deals were never going to close.

That is when he started to dig the hole even deeper. The irony was, as his frustration at not closing sales increased, he stopped prospecting altogether. Instead he just called the same old prospects over and over again, deluding himself that this was prospecting activity.

This death spiral is common and happens to the best salespeople. Let's get real: It's hard to find the energy and motivation to start prospecting when you feel like a loser.

As this cycle continued, Greg failed to replace the stale prospects with new opportunities, became more desperate, hit a slump, and started looking for a silver bullet that would solve his problem. That is when he called me looking for top-secret closing techniques that would save him.

In December Greg stopped prospecting because it was easy to become distracted during the holidays with things that are way more fun than prospecting. Ninety days later his pipeline was stale and stalled. This is what happens when you ignore the 30-Day Rule.

The 30-Day Rule is almost always in play in B2B and high-end B2C sales. In shorter-cycle transactional sales, the 30-Day Rule may become the “One-Week Rule,” but the concept remains the same.

The 30-Day Rule states that the prospecting you do in this 30-day period will pay off for the next 90 days. It is a simple, yet powerful universal rule that governs sales and you ignore it at your peril. When you internalize this rule, it will drive you to never put prospecting aside for another day.

The implication of the 30-Day Rule is simple. Miss a day of prospecting and it will tend to bite you sometime in the next 90 days. Miss a week and you will feel it in your commission check. Miss the entire month and you will tank your pipeline, fall into a slump, and wake up 90 days later desperate, feeling like a loser, with no clue how you ended up there.

The Law of Replacement

Rick sat in in front of his VP of sales. He had made big promises at the beginning of the month on his forecast—predicting a record month. Now he was apologizing for a huge miss. He tried to explain how the sales they were counting on failed to materialize for one reason or another. In a desperate Hail Mary, he pointed out that in the two previous months of the quarter his team had delivered ahead of the forecast. His excuses fell on deaf ears.

Rick came to me looking for answers. “My team let me down, and I can't let that happen again. The one thing my VP expects is that we make the forecast. How do I keep my team from quitting on me in the future?”

I asked Rick to walk me through his team's activity over the past few months since he had taken over as sales manager. He explained that when he first started working with the team, the pipe was weak. He'd pushed his team hard to prospect and get it filled with opportunities.

“And it worked!” he said emphatically. “Two months ago we had the best month we've had in two years. The next month was even better. That's why I don't understand what happened this month. It's like everybody just gave up.”

“Rick, were your salespeople prospecting at the same intensity during those two big months as they did when you were pushing them to fill the pipeline?” I asked.

“No, once we got the pipe full of opportunities, we got out there and started closing deals.”

“Okay, so what does your pipeline look like for next month?”

“Well, that is another thing I had to explain to my VP. We've been so busy working on closing deals that we've let it get weak again.”

Problem identified.

I had to break the news to Rick that his salespeople had not given up on him. Instead he had allowed his team to jump on the classic sales roller coaster because he had failed to heed the Law of Replacement.

Here's a math question: Becky has 30 prospects in her pipeline. Her closing percentage is 10 percent. She closes one deal. How many prospects remain in her pipe?

Most people answer 29.

The real answer is 20.

So why 20? Here's the math. Becky has a 1 in 10 probability of closing a deal. That means on average she will close only one deal out of 10 prospects she puts in her pipeline. The net result is when she closes one deal, the other nine are no longer viable prospects. This means her pipeline will be reduced by 10 prospects rather than one. She must now replace those 10 prospects to keep her pipeline full.

The Law of Replacement can be a difficult concept to understand because it is a statistical formula. You may in fact argue how we could possibly know that the other nine prospects are no longer closeable. To do, however, is missing the point. We are talking about statistical probabilities based on Becky's average closing ratio. The stats tell us, over the long run, that she must replace those prospects to keep her pipeline healthy and full.

The Law of Replacement is a critical concept to internalize because failure to heed this law is the reason salespeople get on, and stay on, roller coasters. Up and down. Up and down. Until one day they get so far down that they can't get back up again.

The lesson the Law of Replacement teaches is that you must constantly be pushing new opportunities into your pipeline so that you're replacing the opportunities that will naturally fall out. And, you must do so at a rate that matches or exceeds your closing ratio. This is where a fanatical prospecting mindset really begins to pay off.

The Anatomy of a Sales Slump

Ninety-nine percent of sales slumps can be linked directly to a failure to prospect. The anatomy of a sales slump looks something like this:

At some point you stopped prospecting (see the 30-Day Rule).

Because you stopped prospecting, your pipeline stalls (see the Law of Replacement).

Because the prospects in your pipe are dead, you stop closing deals.

As you experience this failure, there is an erosion of your confidence.

Your crumbling confidence creates negative self-talk and that further degrades your confidence, wrecks your enthusiasm, and causes you to feel like a loser.

Feeling like a loser saps your energy and motivation for prospecting activity.

Because you don't feel like prospecting, you call the same old dead-end prospects over and over and get nowhere.

The lack of prospecting activity makes your already stale pipe even worse.

You start hoping for silver bullets. But, because hope is not a strategy, nothing changes.

You sink deeper into your slump, get desperate, and then bam! You get slapped by the Universal Law of Need.

Your sales days become depressing black holes of misery.

Early in my sales career I hit a bad slump. The previous quarter I'd closed a ton of new business and allowed myself to get caught up in the administrative work required to set up those new customers.

The truth is, I took the easy way out and justified my lack of prospecting with the admin work. Ninety days later I woke up to a new quarter and a sales manager in my face demanding that I get my sales back on track. It was my up-front and close experience with the brutal reality that in sales it is not about what you have sold but rather what you have sold today.

My sales manager pulled me aside and explained the 30-Day Rule to me. He pointed out that I was in a precarious situation. My bone-dry pipeline was testament to this sad state of affairs. He gave me one strong piece of advice: “Go get on the phone and start dialing.”

Truthfully, I was depressed, angry, and full of excuses. I felt like a total loser. But I took his advice and started prospecting. Just taking action to save my hide boosted my spirits.

At first, though, it didn't feel like I was making any progress—when you are desperate, you try to will the world to conform to your unreasonable deadlines. I felt that I was just going through the motions and sinking deeper into quicksand because I wasn't actually selling anything. But each day of calling added opportunities to my pipe.

I stuck with it and by the end of the quarter, miraculously, I was the number-one sales rep in my region. The impact of daily prospecting on my performance that quarter—from zero to hero in just three months—made an indelible impression on me. It was a lesson I never had to learn again.

Sooner or later, we all let down our guard and find ourselves in desperate need of a sale. The cumulative impact of our poor decisions, procrastination, fears, lack of focus, and even laziness have added up and suddenly we are desperately scrambling to survive.

You can recover, but first you must acknowledge where the blame for your predicament lies. You see, often, when we find ourselves in desperate situations, we fall back on human nature and blame everything and everyone for our plight except, of course, ourselves. The Universal Law of Need doesn't punish others, though. It punishes you for your failures in executing the daily disciplines required for success. Once you look in the mirror and accept your own culpability and take responsibility, you have a chance to change your future.

The First Rule of Sales Slumps

The first rule of holes is when you are in one, stop digging, and the first rule of sales slumps is when you are in one, start prospecting. The only real way to get out of a sales slump is to get back up to the plate and start swinging.

When you find yourself in a slump, take a breath, acknowledge that your negative emotions are just making things worse, and commit yourself to daily prospecting. Do whatever it takes to get your mind focused on prospecting and committing to daily goals.

Don't spend a moment in thought about what might happen to you if you don't get what you need. Worry won't change the future. Likewise, don't get mired down in regret over what you have failed to do. Your future does not lie in your past.

Instead, put all of your energy, emotion, and effort into actions that you control. Success in sales is a simple equation of daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, and annual activity. In other words, you are in complete control of your future. Even in a desperate situation, if you go back to the basics and focus on the right activity soon, the results will come. It will usually take about 30 days of dedicated daily activity to get back on track.

One of my absolute favorite quotes is from Arnold Palmer: “The more I practice, the luckier I get.”

There is a parallel singularity in sales: The more you prospect, the luckier you get.

Will training, experience, and technique make you a better prospector? Of course. However, it is far more important that you prospect consistently than that you prospect using the best techniques.

When you prospect consistently—and that means every day—amazing things happen. The cumulative impact of daily prospecting is massive. You begin to connect with the right people, in the right accounts, at just the right time. Suddenly, opportunities drop in your lap out of nowhere (my team at Sales Gravy calls this phenomenon “The Sales Gods”).

Most salespeople never get lucky because they only do the minimal amount of prospecting required to just squeak by, and when they do start prospecting (usually out of desperation), they expect instant miracles. When those miracles don't happen, they gripe that prospecting doesn't work and crawl back into the warm comfort of mediocrity.

You can't expect to make prospecting calls for a single day and expect miracles any more than you could expect to hit the driving range once and go on to win a golf tournament. It requires consistent commitment and discipline over time—a little bit every day.

So go hit the phones, knock on doors, send e-mails and text messages, pound LinkedIn, ask for referrals, attend networking events, and talk to strangers. Be fanatical. Don't let anything or anyone stop you.

The more you prospect, the luckier you get.


Know Your Numbers

Managing Your Ratios

Everything around you is mathematics. Everything around you is numbers.

—Shakuntala Devi

There are people who will tell you that sales is not a numbers game. This statement is often followed with “That's old-school thinking” or something I heard more recently, “Thinking of sales as a numbers game is stupid.”

Well, being stupid is stupid.

Sales is and always has been governed by numbers because, in sales, the formula for success is a simple mathematical formula: What (quality) you put into the pipe and how much (quantity) determines what you get out of the pipe.

Numbers, or the “how much,” are the science of sales. The “what”—the size of the prospects, the quality of the prospects, the qualification level of the prospects, the depth of your penetration and relationships with decisions makers, influencers, and coaches—that is a little bit of science and art.

Elite Athletes Know Their Numbers

Take a moment and think of your favorite professional athlete. If we were to walk up to that person and ask them to tell us about their latest stats, what do you think the probability is that they'd be able to recite a litany of detailed statistics on their performance?

I'll guarantee it would be 100 percent. I know this because elite athletes know their numbers. They know their numbers because their entire focus as competitors is reaching peak performance. Knowing their numbers gives them the data they need to evaluate how they are doing at any given time and most importantly, to make adjustments.

It is no different in sales. Elite salespeople, like elite athletes, track everything. You will never reach peak performance until you know your numbers and use those numbers to make directional corrections.

At any given moment, you should know how many calls, contacts, e-mails, responses, appointments, and sales you have made. You should track social prospecting activity on sites like LinkedIn, text messages sent, and even smoke signals (if that is relevant). You should measure how many new prospects or new information points you've gathered about existing prospects that you've added to your database.

Once you are tracking your numbers consistently, the door is opened to an honest assessment of both the efficiency and the effectiveness of your sales activities.

Efficiency is how much activity you are generating in the time block allotted for a particular prospecting activity.

Effectiveness is the ratio between the activity and the outcome.

Your drive is to optimize the balance between the two and maximize the outcome.

Efficiency + Effectiveness = Performance

(E + E = P)

For example, you could be highly efficient in making prospecting calls on the phone. You are able to crush it and make 100 dials in an hour. But if those 100 dials result in no new information, no appointments, or appointments with low potential prospects (LPPs), then you were not effective and essentially wasted your time.

Conversely, you could make 10 calls in the same period, setting one appointment with a highly qualified prospect and updating two records in your database. You would be more effective than the previous scenario but extremely inefficient because you wasted a ton of time and suboptimized your phone block.

Without a doubt, there are dozens of variables that drive efficiency and effectiveness for every potential prospecting channel. Those variables include the quality of the list you are working from, industry vertical, time of day, time of year, day of week, decision-maker role of your contact, product or service, complex sale versus transactional, call objective, prospecting channel, quality of your approach, methodology, message, confidence, your mindset, and much more.

Once you know your numbers, you also gain the power to consider these variables objectively. With that information you'll make small adjustments that can increase or even double your sales.

This is why you must gather the courage and self-discipline to track, analyze, and make regular adjustments based on your prospecting performance stats. Keeping count keeps you grounded in reality and focused on your daily goal. It ensures that you remain honest with yourself about where you really stand against your targets and what you need to do or sacrifice to get back on track if you are missing your number.

You Cannot Be Delusional and Successful at the Same Time

Last summer I walked into my office after getting back from an appointment. It was midafternoon as I strolled into the sales bullpen to check the temperature of our sales team. I stopped and asked one of my reps how the day was going.

He shook his head and whined, “It's awful. No one is pulling the trigger today. I don't know what's going on out there, but I'm hitting a brick wall on every call.”

“Well, that's not good,” I said. “Tell me how many calls you've made today.”

He rolled his eyes and shook his head. “A lot! And I'm getting nowhere!”

“Help me understand,” I responded. “When you say ‘a lot,’ what do you mean?”

He grimaced like he was in pain. “Well, I don't know exactly. I'm guessing it's easily 50 calls so far today. You don't understand, Jeb. Something has changed out there. Nobody wants to do anything.”

“Okay, let me see your tracking sheet.” I looked down at his desk, searching for the sheet we use at our office to visually track daily stats.

He stared blankly at his screen for a moment to gather his thoughts and then responded, “Oh, I forgot to use the tracking sheet today. I've been so busy it just slipped my mind. But I'm tracking my calls in SalesForce.”

“All right then, let's go in and take a look at each of your calls and see if we can find a pattern.”

I had him walk me through each of the calls he'd made that day, and while we were doing that checked the call log on our phone system. As we walked through calls and I asked questions, he became more and more aware of just how few calls he'd made that day. When we finished our conversation the final tally was 12. Twelve calls over a seven-hour period. Completely inefficient and a big question mark about what he'd been doing with this time.

At the conclusion of our short coaching session, he said that it felt like he had made far more calls than he actually had. Because he hadn't been visually tracking his activity, he had no idea where he stood.

In retrospect, he was derailed early in the day after two prospects rejected him harshly. That tripped up his confidence and shifted his mindset. It happens to the best of us. Here's where he made his mistake though: Because he failed to track his activity (basically allowing the system to do it for him), he had no visibility into what was actually happening with his prospecting activity. With his emotions reeling, he lost touch with reality and deluded himself into believing that he was being productive.

One of the commonalities that I observe among top salespeople and fanatical prospectors across all market segments—inside and outside—is manual tracking of activity. They each have their own style and means of tracking their numbers, but the one thing they all know is exactly where they stand.

The majority of salespeople don't track their numbers. Why? Because it is so much easier to delude themselves into thinking that they have made far more calls or prospecting touches than they have really made. The false comfort of delusion is warm and fuzzy and far more inviting than the cold edge of reality.

When you choose delusion over reality, you are making a conscious choice to not only lie to yourself but to lower your standards and performance. Reality is the realm of superstars, and joining reality is one of the first steps you'll need to take on the road to developing a fanatical prospecting mindset.


The Three Ps That Are Holding You Back


—Francis of Assisi

There are three mindsets that hold salespeople back from prospecting: procrastination, perfectionism, and paralysis from analysis.


You've no doubt heard the children's riddle, “What is the best way to eat an elephant?”

The answer, of course, is, “One bite at a time.”

It's a simple concept. But when it comes to the real world and real problems, not that easy.

Far too often we try to eat the elephants in our lives all in one bite, which results in stress, frustration, and ultimately failure. You can't do all of your prospecting for the month in one day. It is impossible and it will never get done.

Yet salespeople put prospecting off—always with the promise that they'll “get around to it” tomorrow or later this week or Monday or whatever the prevailing excuse of the day is. They delude themselves into believing that they can prospect once or twice a week and it will be okay. But I know the real truth, and so do you. It never works out like that.

Procrastination is an ugly disease that plagues the human race. No one is immune. You've got it and I've got it. In fact, I have a PhD in procrastination—a bona fide expert. One year I bought a book called How to Stop Procrastinating (my New Year's resolution). That book sat unread on my bedside table for three years until I finally sold it at a garage sale.

Every major failure in my life has been a direct result of a collapse in my self-discipline to do the little things every day. Frankly, that is all failure really is. The cumulative impact of many poor decisions, slips in self-disciplines, and things put off until it is too late. To add insult to injury, my failures were often accompanied by an embarrassing crescendo of desperate, hurried, and wasted activity trying to catch up and do it all at once, to save my hide.

It is in our nature as humans to procrastinate. It is normal and easy. It's easy to say, “Oh, I'm tired, I'll exercise tomorrow.” It's easy to say, “I'll start my diet tomorrow, I'll quit smoking after this pack, I'll make up today's prospecting on Friday, I'll start reading that book next week!” It's in our nature to fool ourselves with these promises.

But there is no reward for procrastination. The failure to do the little things every day will cripple your efforts to achieve your goals. Lack of discipline will slowly but surely tug at your success and will eventually steal it away.

To be a fanatical prospector, you must develop the self-discipline to do a little bit of prospecting each day. You can't wait until the end of the year or even the end of the month to prospect. You have to prospect every day.

Procrastinating is easy, but the cost is great. Many salespeople don't understand the price they have paid until they wake up one day and realize that they are facing down the Universal Law of Need with an empty pipe and an angry sales manager while sitting on top of a big pile of “shoulda-dones,” regret, and failure.

As the saying goes: “Procrastination is the grave in which opportunity is buried.”


I looked on as Jeremy arranged his desk perfectly. Organized his computer. Made sure that he had his script just right. He carefully researched each prospect on his list. Google search, LinkedIn search, company website search, and reviewed in detail the history and call notes in the CRM.

An hour went by. Then two. Finally he made the first call—a call to a prospect on which he had done meticulous research. His call went to voice mail, as did the next call, and the next one. He sighed, “No one answers the phone these days.”

After three calls he stopped to arrange things on his desk just so. Twenty minutes later he packed up his things and headed out into the field to visit customers he was already doing business with. In Jeremy's quest for perfectionism, he managed to make seven prospecting calls in about three hours, getting nothing in return for his effort.

Valarie has an office right next door to Jeremy. As soon as she sat down at her desk that same morning, she ran a list on her CRM and started dialing. An hour later she'd made 53 calls, spoken to 14 decision makers, and set two appointments with qualified prospects. Then she sent 39 prospecting e-mails. It wasn't perfect. She ran into a few snags and had a couple of calls that would have gone better had she researched in advance. However, she accomplished far more than Jeremy. Valarie was also earning more than Jeremy—almost $100,000 more in commissions—and was the number one–ranked sales rep in her division.

In her Huffington Post article, “14 Signs Your Perfectionism Has Gotten Out of Control,” Carolyn Gregoire writes, “The great irony of perfectionism is that while it's characterized by an intense drive to succeed, it can be the very thing that prevents success. Perfectionism is highly correlated with fear of failure (which is generally not the best motivator) and self-defeating behavior, such as excessive procrastination.”1

This statement describes perfectly why perfectionism is the arch enemy of fanatical prospecting. It generates both procrastination and the fear of rejection (failure).

The late, great Zig Ziglar said, “Anything worth doing is worth doing poorly.” I've always believed that messy success is far better than perfect mediocrity. I'll beat the rep that spends a call block meticulously researching each prospect on any day by just picking up a targeted list and calling. Sure, I'll miss a few things here and there if I don't read every note in the CRM, but there won't be enough of a delta to compensate for the activity gap between me and the rep who gets everything perfect before making a single prospecting call.

To be clear, I am not saying that researching or organizing your prospecting block is a bad idea. If you are calling C-level prospects, or you sell a complex and expensive product, it is a good idea to research your prospect in advance so that your message is relevant to their unique situation. Advance is the optimal word, though. Do research before and after the Golden Hours so that it does not encroach on your prospecting block.

However, when perfect research, perfect organization, or finding the perfect time to call becomes an obsession that you use to shield yourself from potential rejection, or if you delude yourself into believing that you are working when you are accomplishing nothing, you've got to get control of it.

Most of the problem with perfectionism is self-talk. The voice inside your head telling you that when you get all of your little ducks in a perfect row, prospects will be putty in your hands. This self-talk manifests itself in behaviors that tend to have you working hard getting everything ready and perfect, but not actually doing anything.

Paralysis from Analysis

Call reluctance is a common label that gets slapped on salespeople who fail to prospect. The term conjures up the image of a salesperson staring at the phone or at their prospect's front door—knees shaking, palms sweating, drenched in anxiety, unwilling to take the next step.

Call reluctance is an easy label to apply because it seems to cover all sales sins. But some people aren't reluctant—they are just in the wrong job. If you are that person, so afraid to call that you can't will your fingers to dial the phone or your feet to move, so afraid of calling on strangers that you find it hard to go to work or even get out of bed—quit. Go do something else. This book won't help you. You don't have call reluctance, you are doing something you hate, and trust me on this: Life is too short to spend doing something you hate.

Another, more common reason for what appears to be call reluctance is paralysis from analysis. This problem is driven in part by perfectionism and is totally fixable. Here is what analysis paralysis sounds like emanating from the mouth of a salesperson:

“Well, what if they say no?”

“What if they say this or that?”

“How will I know if…?”

“What should I do if…?”

Rather than just dialing the phone, sending the e-mail, or walking in the door and dealing with what comes next, the rep goes on a “what if” binge, often followed by an attempt to get every duck in a perfect row.

Disrupting the 3Ps

When I'm working with salespeople who are being held back by all or one of the 3Ps, I get them focused on making just one call. Then the next. Then the next. One call at a time. Sometimes I get a list and sit next to them and dial too. When they see that I'm not getting blown out of the water by prospects, it gets easier for them to let go and take action.

Sometimes I have to be a bit more direct to get them to jump into prospecting. The solution is to push them hard to “just do it.” Just pick up the phone and make the call. Let the “what ifs” take care of themselves. I know that might sound a bit harsh, but a push is sometimes what is required to break this destructive cycle. It's not much different from how I learned to swim.

I was six and shivering. My toes hung precariously off the edge of the diving board that jutted out over the lake at Athens Y Camp in north Georgia. The hulking, six-foot-five frame of Coach Poss, the waterfront director, towered over me.

We'd spent that last five days learning strokes, how to kick, and how to breathe, all in the safety of the shallow end. Now it was the moment of truth. Each student had to jump from the diving board into the dark, cold, deep lake and swim the 10 feet or so to shore. It seemed like a mile to me.

I looked back at Coach Poss. “What if I can't swim? What if I don't come back up?” I pleaded. I stood on the end of that diving board staring at the water, running all of the worst-case scenarios over in my head.

Coach Poss began walking toward me. He was neither amused nor swayed by my pleading. There was only one thing I feared more than jumping into the lake, and he was getting closer by the second. He'd already unceremoniously hurled a couple of reluctant beginner swimmers from the diving board. I did not want that embarrassment, so I jumped.

I hit the cold water and went under. For a moment I panicked. Then I stroked my arms and kicked my feet and burst through the surface. I remembered my lessons and paddled my way to the shore. The strokes were not perfect—more dog paddle than breast stroke—but I made it. I made it!

After that, you couldn't keep me off of that diving board. Coach Poss taught me to swim because he forced me to do it. He wasn't worried. He knew I wouldn't drown.

We've all found ourselves in the crushing grip of the 3Ps. I observe salespeople endlessly obsessing and overthinking the potential outcomes of prospecting calls almost every day of my professional life. They convince themselves that they need to gather more facts, just need a little bit more training, or that the timing is not right. They squander time worrying about what ifs and look at me with puppy dog eyes pleading for more time to get it right before diving in.

The human mind abhors the unknown. In its natural state, it wants to be safe and secure. It doesn't like jumping off of a diving board into a cold lake or picking up a phone and calling a stranger. It panics in the face of change and clings to the status quo. Then it begins to convince us that all kinds of awful, dire consequences are imminent. But at some point, you've got to do something. Sometimes you just need a Coach Poss or a Coach Jeb to push you to take action.

Regardless of your situation, the one thing you can be sure of is that allowing the 3Ps to stand in the way of prospecting extracts a high emotional and financial cost.

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1. Carolyn Gregoire, “Fourteen Signs Your Perfectionism Has Gotten Out of Control,” Huffington Post, www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/06/why-perfectionism-is-ruin_n_4212069.html.



The Great Equalizer of Sales

To succeed in sales, simply talk to lots of people every day. And here's what's exciting—there are lots of people!

—Jim Rohn

At the beginning of every Fanatical Prospecting workshop, seminar, and boot camp, we ask participants to tell us their greatest sales challenge. We've asked the question more than 10,000 times. Eighty percent of the sales professionals and sales leaders who attend our sessions say that they struggle most with time management.

“I just never seem to have enough time for prospecting with everything else I have to get done” is a constant refrain.

Yes, salespeople and sales leaders are busy. Yes, sales organizations are asking more of their salespeople than ever before. Yes, there are proposals to create, contracts to get approved, orders to enter into the system, calls to record in the CRM, meetings to attend, and asses to kiss. For salespeople, though, most time management problems are self-inflicted.

The difference between top performers and all of the other salespeople who are picking crumbs up off of the floor is top sales pros are masters at maximizing prime selling time for…selling.

Top performers organize their day into distinct time blocks dedicated to specific activities, concentrating their focus and eliminating distractions within those blocks. They develop outside sales territory plans that minimize drive time and inside sales plans that organize their database and resources to get the most out of each sales day. They delegate nonessential and nonselling tasks to their support teams. They are flexible, adaptive, and creative in their quest to maximize time for selling and minimize distractions that steal their commission checks.


The one constant for every salesperson is time. Time for prospecting, time for discovery, time for meetings, time for demonstrations, time for presentations, time for closing, and, unfortunately, time for administrative tasks, CRM data entry, and paperwork.

Every salesperson has exactly 24 hours each day, and only a handful of these hours are available for selling. It's how you efficiently and effectively use these “Golden Hours” that is the ultimate difference between failure, average, and superstardom. When you master time, territory, and resource management, you'll lower your stress level and make more money.

This chapter is not an ad nauseam treatise on time-management tools. Time-management tools abound. From Google apps to the Outlook calendar to your CRM to the thousands of cutting-edge apps for mobile devices, there is no shortage of tools available to help you manage time, tasks, and resources. My recommendation is to find the ones that work best for you and then use them in the way that works best for you. You'll find an updated list of time and territory management tools at FanaticalProspecting.com.

My primary objective is to generate awareness for how critical time management is to your success and income and, help you shift your mindset about how you schedule and manage time for prospecting and other sales activities. I want you to take an honest look at the consequences of the choices you are making about where and how to spend your time and how those choices may be holding you back.

Adopt a CEO Mindset

The CEO mindset is the most critical component of time, territory, and resource management. Unless and until you are willing to accept complete responsibility for owning your time, nothing else matters. When you adopt a CEO mindset, you choose to see yourself as the CEO of You, Inc.

For dramatic effect, I ask the salespeople in our Fanatical Prospecting Boot Camps to take out their business card, scratch out whatever title is on it, and write in CEO. It's a little corny, but it drives home the point that in sales you control your own destiny. This is the very reason that I love sales so much.

CEOs are ultimately responsible for the results of their organization. They can't push blame off on anyone else. They are expected to deliver and the buck stops with them. However, CEOs have constraints because resources are scarce. The CEO is tasked with generating the highest return on investment possible with the scarce resources available to them.

Likewise, in sales, you are constrained by scare resources. Your job is to generate the highest ROI possible for your company and the largest possible commission outcome for yourself with those scarce resources. And your scarcest resource is time.

Fanatical prospectors adopt a CEO mindset. They believe that they and they alone are accountable for their own success or failure. They take complete responsibility and accountability for managing their time, territory, prospect database (CRM), and resources.

As the CEO of their own selling company, they do not allow anything to intrude on the Golden Hours and they are diligent and disciplined with how and where they spend their time. They are also aware that they don't live in a perfect world.

No matter how much you plan and how disciplined you are with your time, prospects, customers, the boss, and sometimes life will throw you curve balls. The true test of CEOs in the business world is their ability to find creative solutions to inevitable roadblocks. Likewise, fanatical prospectors do not allow unexpected obstacles to slow them down. They do not blame others. They do not make excuses. Instead, when faced with roadblocks, distractions, and surprises, they adapt and find creative solutions that allow them to work around problems while they continue to fill the pipe.

Protect the Golden Hours

The single biggest challenge for salespeople is keeping nonrevenue-generating activities from interfering with the Golden Hours. It's a challenge for many reasons:

There will always be clients, managers, and peers who will make requests of you that are nonsales activities but require your attention.

When your prospecting activity levels are high, you will naturally generate more follow-up tasks like demos, presentations, proposals, CRM data entry, contacts, approval requests, implementations, follow-up calls, inbound calls, and so on.

Doing nonsales activity feels important—like you are getting things done.

Nonsales activity is the perfect excuse to avoid the hard work of prospecting. This is the core reason salespeople dig holes for themselves. Busy work becomes an excuse for not prospecting.

Let me make this crystal clear. Salespeople get paid to sell. Period. End of story. Whine and complain about all the stuff you've got to do if you like, but it will not change the fact that your job is to be interacting with qualified prospects during the Golden Hours and moving them into and through the pipeline.

Therefore, if you are a salesperson and you are not doing things that are directly related to selling during the Golden Hours, then you are not doing your job.

I've heard the same BS excuses a million times:

“Wait a minute, Jeb, what about all of those things my manager or customers need me to do? When am I supposed to get it all done?”

“If the company didn't put so much on me, I might have time to actually sell something [eyes rolling—sarcastic tone].”

“What about my work-life balance? I don't get paid to do this stuff after work. I've got a family, dog, golf game, friends, stuff I've got to do!”

Here are your choices:

Delude yourself. You can continue along the same track, deluding yourself that doing busy work during the Golden Hours is actual sales work, but you cannot be delusional and successful at the same time.

Just say no. One of the most effective ways to unload nonsales activity is to just say no. You don't have to take on or do everything that others bring to you. Whenever someone brings a task to you that has the potential to derail your Golden Hours and it is not mission critical—say no. This won't be easy. However, if you consistently create reasonable boundaries, it won't take long for others to get the message.

Prioritize. Get your priorities straight. I have never known of a salesperson who was consistently hitting her numbers and got fired for not getting nonsales administrative tasks done. Harassed, maybe, but fired—never. On the other hand tens of thousands of salespeople get canned for not making their number. Not everything is a priority, and in some cases, this means that there are tasks that may not get done. That's okay. Keep the pipe full and get the deals closed and no one will ever remember.

Do important nonsales activities before or after the Golden Hours. There will always be nonselling activities that you must do to be successful in your job. Proposals, pre-call preparation, contracts, orders, reports, and CRM data entry are all important, but they are not sales activity. Do these things before and after prime selling time—in the Platinum Hours. Yes, I already know the excuses: “But Jeb, I've got a family, a life…things to do.” Here's the deal. In sales time is money and the money is in the Golden Hours. If you want to make more money, you will have to make some sacrifices. If you want to maximize your income, you will need to get up early, go to bed late, and do some work on weekends to ensure that you don't waste your Golden Hours on nonsales activities.

Delegate. One of the most effective things you can do with nonsales-related tasks is to delegate them. Leverage your support staff to the fullest. In every organization, there are people assigned to solve specific problems and get stuff done. If you don't know who these people are, ask questions and keep asking until you find out. Sometimes these people are assigned to help you on a formal basis and sometimes there is an informal system. If you don't have sales support available, consider hiring someone to help you. You can hire someone locally or easily find virtual assistants who will work for you, on demand, by the hour. If you are an independent sales rep like a real estate broker, financial advisor, or insurance agent, getting an assistant is a smart move.

Top sales pros fiercely protect the Golden Hours. They say no a lot. When a fellow rep stops by to chat them up about the weekend or bellyache about a recent policy change, they do not engage. When managers and corporate staff attempt to dump busy work on them, they push back. The best reps put “Do not disturb” signs on their doors when they are on prospecting blocks to keep distractors at bay.

Your daily mission is simple: Squeeze as much out of the Golden Hours as possible by managing that time wisely. If you are not prospecting, qualifying, information gathering, presenting, or closing during Golden Hours, you are hurting your career and your income and you are not doing your job.

The Fine Art of Delegation

Delegating is how you scale yourself. It is how you get more done with the same 24 hours. However, delegating also requires you to have to let go of control and trust other people.

The desire to control everything that is happening with their customers and accounts is how many salespeople get themselves into trouble and cause themselves immeasurable stress. They made promises to their customers and they want to control the outcomes. I get that. The problem is they cannot scale themselves and eventually stop prospecting because they are bogged down with nonsales activity that others could do. You can only scale when you tap into the talents of others to accomplish more.

Effective delegation begins with effective communication. Salespeople create havoc and communication breakdowns when they fail to give clear instructions to their support team. Then, when mistakes are made, these same salespeople throw their hands in the air and proclaim, “If you