Aug 25, 2014 By Josiane Feigon

Great Prospecting is One Part Persistence AND One Part Creativity

in Sales

The ability to stay creative in sales is incredibly valuable, but is it being overshadowed by persistence?

Inside sales organizations often focus on persistence and with good reasons:

A few now-famous studies once showed that only 2% of sales happen after first contact, with over 80% occurring only after 5 contact attempts.
But only a small fraction of salespeople—8%, to be exact—continued to contact a prospect a 5^th time.
That meant 92% of salespeople were simply falling short on persistence. Yikes!

It’s a well-established fact: without patience and persistence, your prospecting efforts will be a drag on quota-attainment.

Inside sales managers got the message loud and clear. Many sales organizations have been focusing on developing their reps’ persistence, instituting outreach metrics-targets that require multiple touches and asking for sales training that emphasizes it.

But persistence is only one part of the equation.

Without the other part—creativity—you risk turning into a contact-machine: calling for the sake of calling, and working with a metrics target in mind instead of with your prospects in mind. In the Sales 2.0 ecosystem, those aren’t metrics that motivate.

Effective prospecting persistence isn’t about continuing to bang your head against a wall over and over again, no matter the target’s total lack of interest or response. The art of creative persistence is about hanging on, but not for dear life.

Take a look at your funnel with me. Focus on the older prospects in there and ask yourself:

Are you calling with something real to say? If you’ve been sending them emails “just checking-in” or “touching base” or “wondering” about a project they were working on, these aren’t going to cut it with Customer 2.0. If you’re not calling with a value proposition, or with something new they could benefit from, then you need to hit the research harder.
Are you listening to the prospect and acting on that? When your fourth call uses the same pitch as your third call, you’re stuck in neutral. Multiple attempts require more variety. Each connection—even if it doesn’t lead to a sale—should build on and learn from what happened the previous time. That’s what a real conversation looks like, and your prospects will notice.
Have you pulled out your contagious content and tried nurturing them with some visual bling?

Are you using multiple channels for your message? Stop calling and calling and calling, or emailing and emailing and emailing. We’re up to our eyeballs in communications technology, so vary your approach. Your prospect will respond best when they see you making well-timed contact through multiple channels.

About the Author:

Josiane Feigon is the CEO of TeleSmart, a provider of inside sales training and coaching. She has trained 20-thousand-plus salespeople and still counting. Consistently recognized among The Top 25 Most Influential Inside Sales Professionals, Feigon is one of the world’s leading experts on inside sales team and management talent. She is also a #1 Rated Inside Sales Training Bestselling author, speaker, and sales futurist. Follow her on Twitter, connect on LinkedIn, and join the conversation on Inside Sales 2.0 Trends Talk LinkedIn Group. If you want epic inside sales training for teams and managers, contact TeleSmart.