4 Sales Prospecting Mistakes and How to Avoid Them

For those of you working in sales, you need to be certain you get the most out prospecting. You also need to make sure you do not make some of the common prospecting mistakes.

In particular, there are four sales prospecting mistakes you should avoid. Each mistake can have a huge impact on your pipeline and your sales.

1. Not Doing Enough Research

If you do not prepare with enough research, you are committing one of the most common mistakes. You have to determine if a prospect is a good prospect. Otherwise, you end up spending too much time where it should not be spent. And if you don't have the right research on good prospects, then you will not have the most effective pitch.

To avoid being under-prepared, you need to research every avenue possible. You need to find as many specifics as possible. When you have the specifics, your ice-breakers, presentations, and ability to close deals improve.

2. Using Canned Communications

As you reach out to prospects, you need to not send canned communications. Sure, you might copy and paste some specifics about your services or specifics about you and your company, but if you are not careful canned language can hurt your prospecting.

You can avoid canned communications without impacting your ability to reach a large number of prospects. Break your prospects into various groups based on industry and other labels. Then, you can set aside times to reach out to those certain types of leads. And even then, each communication must come across as a unique, personalized communication. Otherwise, you can come across as irrelevant. You also can run the risk of sounding too salesy.

3. Placing Equal Value on Leads

When you place equal value on your leads, you do not have a realistic assessment of your prospects. You always need to be on top of prospecting, and that means you must be as accurate as possible. Do not fill up your pipeline with unrealistic leads just because you want to have volume in your pipeline. Your pipeline needs to be realistic about your current situation and paint an accurate prediction for the future.

To accurately assess your leads, you need to work on your targeting, better assess customer lifetime value (CLV), and constantly analyze your pipeline to have a real picture of your prospects Yes, you want to have as many leads as possible. However, quality leads are way more important for you than the number of your leads. If you are having are a hard time getting enough leads, try to improve your research, adjust your schedule to allow more time for prospecting, and work on improving your current relationship with customers in hopes you get more referrals.

4. Taking Things Too Personal

With all the yeses you get, you also get a lot of nos. Do not let the nos get you down. You should not ever let your work become too personal. When you do that, you begin to beat yourself up and lose confidence in your abilities and your products. Your prospect might tell you no five times or even ten times, but you still might end up getting their business. In fact, 80 percent of sales do not occur until around the fifth point of contact or later.

You need to always remind yourself of the ways you can improve sales. Any time that someone tells you no, you should use that no as an encouragement to work on your sales skills. And with each conversation you have, you increase your prospect knowledge. Each no is actually a blessing. You are either on your way to building a better relationship with a prospect and learning more about them, or you are on your way to removing them from your pipeline and ensuring your prospect list is accurate.

You Can Avoid These Common Mistakes

Each of the four mistakes covered can be avoided. You just need to have an honest assessment as to whether or not you are making them. And when you have that honest assessment, you can correct the reasons they occur and prevent yourself from making them again. You can without a doubt improve your prospecting, and you definitely can improve your sales.