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Whitepaper on Customer Messaging Must have Adobe Reader 8.0
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Filling The
Pipeline In our study of top-achieving salespeople, we discovered that even the most successful salespeople, those who are in the top 10% of their sales forces, prospect for new business. Even though they all had an established base of business, they sought new sources of business--new customers. The message for the other 90% of salespeople is simple: you must prospect for new business. I believe it helps if you understand the four realities of cold calling. Reality number one: You must cold call. Unless you have 100% customer retention, you need new sources of business. Unless you are convinced that 100% of your customers will be here a year from now and will continue to buy from you, you need new opportunities. Reality number two: Most salespeople hate to cold call. Call reluctance is the number one reason most salespeople fail to cold call. They are intimidated by the thought of knocking on doors, making phone calls, or canvassing an area. The insurance industry spends a fortune on helping salespeople get beyond this fear. Reality number three: It's okay to hate cold calling. No one has ever said you must like it, rather that you just must do it. There are a lot of things people dislike in their jobs, but they do them anyway. I don't know anyone in business that loves 100% of the things they must do in their jobs. For example, I don't like doing expense reports, but I do them or I don't get reimbursed. Reality number four: You still must cold call. Even if you hate it, you must still cold call. When top achievers tell us that one-in-five of the sales calls they make are on new prospects, use that as your benchmark. You may need to adjust up or down depending on your personal situation, but if you're not spending at least 20% of your time prospecting, you're not doing enough to plant seeds. The average customer retention rate across industries is 81%. This means the average company loses one-in-five customers every year. How do you think they are replacing that business? |
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