Sales hunters may soon be added to the list of extinct animals along with dinosaurs, woolly mammoths and saber-toothed tigers.
Sales hunters are slowly becoming less and less visible, hiding behind a phone or sending proposals via email. Covid aside, what has happened to physically getting in front of potential clients to listen to their needs and offer them solutions?
When consulting with sales leaders, one of the biggest challenges they face is that their salespeople are not in front of enough qualified prospects on a daily basis. From my experience in assessing sales teams, less than 10% of the salespeople have the skills needed to proactively prospect and source their own business and not rely solely on leads, call ins or walk ins. This is a massive challenge, especially in today’s challenging economy.
There are many reasons for this:
- No training on how to prospect effectively.
- Reliance on leads and existing accounts.
- Hoping posting on social media will bring in business.
- An inherent fear of prospecting and cold calling.
- No clear prospecting strategy, structure or discipline for success.
- Sales managers who don’t lead by example.
- No buy in to a prospecting system that actually works.
The old saying of ‘if you keep doing what you do, you will keep getting what you get’, is no longer true. Nowadays you will get less!
You may have the best product, service and offering, but if people don’t know that you exist, you’re never going to sell it. If you want to stand out from your competitors it’s time to develop your sales hunting skills.
How important is it that you and your team are in front of more qualified prospects every day and if so, what are you doing about it?
