Fanatical Prospecting Book Review – Part Two

📅  31st August 2020 | 2020/21 Sales Book Reviews

Here’s a link to Part One – the second half of Jeb’s Fanatical Prospecting is laden with tips and ideas to help with your prospecting.

The stand out piece of wisdom for me is one from Chapter 22. When it is time to go home, make one more call.  Post-COVID, that may need to be altered to read do another hour’s research or write another focused e-mail.

“Efficient and Effective” are words mentioned more than once in FP.  Sales novices will be well advised to take on board the techniques the author illustrates. Being a hard-working and enthusiastic amateur won’t necessarily make you effective or efficient. Read on….

 

 

The Good

Prospecting for new business is not something you do in a disorderly manner. Like actual sales calls, prospecting needs to be thought through. Jeb Blount shows us how to create a strategic prospecting campaign (SPC). This involves getting the prospect familiar with your brand across multiple social media channels.

I liked the way ‘managing the prospect pyramid’ and database (or CRM) ownership was explained.  Jeb’s quote at the beginning of Chapter 11 sums it up. The most expensive thing you can do in sales is spend your time with the wrong prospect. You have to know why you are phoning people – PRIORITISE

Getting prospects familiar with you brand mustn’t come at the expense of actually doing some hard work!  As the author writes, you’re not there to set appointments, get leads or close business (even in these days of Zoom or Remo networking). One goes networking to create new connections, or rekindle old ones. Take careful notes after each networking session and enter them in your CRM system.

Another way of getting others familiar with your brand is to speak in public. (Jeb is an exemplar) Difficult at present but there are many on-line events. And there’s always podcasting too.

There are several pages devoted to e-mail prospecting. Jeb Blount goes into great detail on when you should send e-mail’s , their length, core message and so on. This is followed by a chapter on Text Messaging and the seven rules you need to adhere to in order to be effective with this communication medium.

The Bad

The chapters on ‘in-person prospecting’ ( or door knocking and often called cold-canvassing) telephone prospecting and *RBO’s reminded me of a time past. Many of the tips and tricks mentioned are those taught to me in the 80’s, 90’s and naughties. As I’ve already explained, these are less relevant in 2020. Besides buyers and business owners have become innured to ‘old-fashioned’ techniques. The classic telephone canvassing line “that’s exactly why I called” following “we’re not interested” or “we’re really happy with our existing supplier”, I really don’t think has a place in modern sales books.

The Ugly

I enjoyed reading the chapter on Mental Toughness. The book shows us the four pillars:

Desire

Mental Resilience

Outlearn  (Read more!)

Physical Resilience (Regular Exercise, Sleep Well & Eat Healthily)

Remember, quitting and being mediocre is a choice.

 

 

*RBO’s  = Reflex Responses, Brush-Offs, and Objections.

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Tags: behaviours, sales training