Change is Hard But Doing Nothing is Harder
Why do most salespeople dislike prospecting, even though it’s the most important part of the sales process? Easy, fear: Fear of rejection; fear of failure; fear of the unknown and, fear of change.
Most salespeople, heck, most people, do the same things every day, whether it works or not. Someone once said that was the definition of insanity. During this economic crisis, I’ve spoken to numerous sales executives who have told me their salespeople are operating the same way during this tough climate as they did when business was booming: and, wonder why it’s not working.
Change is hard. The problem with change is; it brings into play all the other fears I mentioned earlier: Rejection; failure; the unknown. Heck, even insignificant change can be difficult.
I’m left-handed. Because of that I wear my watch on my right wrist. The other day I scratched my right wrist and it made wearing a watch very uncomfortable. So, instead of going without a watch I just moved it over to my left wrist for one day; and it was so uncomfortable it drove me freakin’ crazy!! Try it sometime and you’ll get a real good idea of how difficult change is.
But, be that as it may, if you DON’T change what you’re doing, especially when it comes to your prospecting effort, you’ll soon be out of a job.
If the fear of rejection; fear of failure and fear of the unknown is stopping you from “Making more calls,” don’t fall into the trap of trying to change drastically and all at once: do it gradually. In fact, do it so gradually it doesn’t even feel like change.
For example: if you’re currently making a miniscule 3 prospecting calls a week don’t even try to jump up to 20 to 50 calls a week. Sure you could probably do it: ONCE. But if you think wearing your watch on the other wrist is uncomfortable, try handling an extra 20 to 40 rejections a week than you’re used to. I don’t see that lasting very long.
Do this: track your activity. Figure out how many prospecting calls you’re making a week and then: Make 1 more.
That’s right, just one more call a week. But do it every week for a month and then the next month, do 1 more every week and so on. By the 12th month you’ll be making 12 more prospecting calls a week than you were making at the beginning of the year.
But by doing just 1 extra every month, you didn’t subject yourself to the horrors, the fears and the unknown associated with drastic change.
