Rethink Your Plan

Once you’ve acknowledged the fact that opportunity creating isn’t a one-and-done scenario, you need to put together your plan. How will you start the conversation? How often will you reach out? What data or content will you use to justify the conversation? 

Prospecting is not an improvisational exercise simply repeated over and over. It’s a well-orchestrated campaign with a beginning and a logical conclusion. If you’re not approaching it this way, you’re setting yourself up for frustration and disappointment.

Most salespeople send an email with a request to teach their prospect more. When it’s ignored, they send another similar one. Worse, they forward the original email asking if the prospect received it. 

Treat your campaign almost as if you’re having a conversation with your prospect, but you’re the only one participating. Ask questions without expecting a response, knowing that the tension created by good questions going unanswered will often be enough to get the meeting. Make your prospect think that there’s something you know that they wish they did, and give them the opportunity to learn it.

The cadence should be consistent and regular. You can’t reach out every two weeks and expect to gain any momentum with someone who doesn’t know you. You can be persistent without being a pest. That has everything to do with the value of your conversation. Your job is to prove to your prospect that you’re someone worth talking to and that you have something worth talking about.