“Sales is 100/10/3 game”, said my manager on my first day of sales job.
“That is, contact 100 people, get 10 appointments, close 3 deals. It’s that simple!”.
Hence, I started with the mindset of – “Sales is a game of number.”
My aim was to pitch 100 customers the soonest to reach to the 3 closed deals….
But I hardly got results.
Until, I realized that doing meetings to hit numbers is useless.
And useless meetings are like collecting bogus numbers.
Bogus numbers lead to bogus sales goals: and result in disappointment and discouragement.
One day, I somehow stumbled on “prospecting right” vs “focusing on meeting numbers” strategy.
I decided to try it.
It was like suddenly hitting a jackpot.
The more time I spent on prospecting, the better I got in the game.
I learned:
1) Prospecting is identifying “the man” with the problem.
2) Talking to any stranger is not prospecting.
3) You must establish contact with prospect & engage them- Thinking about a prospect does not qualify as prospecting.
4) A prospect is only a half prospect when identified – they qualify to be a full prospect when they’ve shared with us a piece of proprietary information.
Before blaming the market, find out if your sales team is prospecting right.
