Sales Prospecting Plan — Does Yours Work?

How is your sales prospecting plan working for you?

The definition of insanity is continuing to do the same thing over and over and expecting different results. Unfortunately, this exemplifies the expectations of too many sales prospecting plans.

Below are a series of questions you can ask yourself regarding your sales prospecting plan to help you gauge how effective it is and what areas you may want to change.

1. Where do your sales leads comes from? List by type and percentage (Examples: referral, website, cold-calling, marketing, etc.)

2. What percentage of each type of lead do you ultimately close?

3. How many sales calls does it take to close each sale? Break this list down by type to include phone call, voicemail, live meeting, email, etc.

4. How long does it take to close a sale from the time the lead first develops? Break these down by source, i.e. referral, networking, cold-calling, etc.

5. By customer type, list the key reasons the customer tells you as to why they do buy from you?

6. By customer type, list the key reasons a customer tells you they are not going to buy from you?

7. How much time do you spend each day/week in the actual activity of interacting with prospects?

8. How much time do you spend in activities preparing to prospect? Break these activities down into specific categories with the amount of time spent on each.

9. What percentage of your new customers become repeat customers?

10. How much is a new customer worth to you in gross sales and net profit in the first year? What type of customer is your most profitable? What type is the least profitable?

11. Is there a particular product or service new customers are drawn to? Does this vary by type of lead?

Notice not one question asked about the type of CRM system you use. This is intentional as I strongly believe too many salespeople are quick to blame any shortcoming in their prospecting process is due to the CRM system they’re either using or not using. Sorry, not the case in 98% of all situations.

Use these questions I’ve listed as a directional guide to help you begin to determine where and what you need to work on in your sales prospecting plan.

And if you missed my other recent posts on prospecting, check them out:

10 Sales Prospecting Quotes to Boost Your Sales Motivation

Sales Prospecting Methods and what Works

9 Sales Prospecting Tools that Make a Difference

Prospecting Sales Leads: Quantity vs. Quality

Why Networking is not Prospecting

The Best Way to Sales Prospect with Voice Mail