Saying that you don’t like to prospect is like admitting to someone that you aren’t a true salesperson. I’m sure that you’ll get a couple of internet leads to occupy your time this week, but it won’t be too long until your pipeline dries up and you focus more on selling your excuses than your products. Did I make you angry? Good. Puff up your chest and flex your biceps because we need to work on your upper sales body. Prospecting is when we should come out swinging (not when a blog gets under your skin) to show others how we can jab. The upper body is where we display our confidence in both sales and fitness. Just like the chicken legs that some of you have that we mentioned in the lower sales body article, some of you have string beans for arms when it comes time to find new business and take a swing at it. You look more like Olive Oyl than Popeye. Consider this your sales spinach. I get why you don’t like to prospect. You are afraid of rejection; plain and simple. Deny this if you will, but you know that if 10 out of every 10 prospecting phone calls you made would all result in new business and it would hit your bank account, I’d never get you off of the phone. You aren’t going to get 10 for 10 because no one does. When you are out there swinging your sales fists and you don’t land the punch, this usually means the other person is going to swing back and try to hit you in the face. Getting punched in the face hurts, and so do sales rejections. What do you expect when you haven’t been exercising your upper sales body to both throw and block a punch? People love to work on their upper body in the gym because these are the muscles that they and everyone else sees the most, and people who have the most muscles to show love to flaunt it.💪 This is so true in sales. Salespeople who are excellent prospectors and hunters love to flex their muscles in front of everybody, and sometimes in the strangest of places. They wear skin tight shirts everywhere they go and are in their full glory as their veins bulge from their arms because there is no more room for them under their skin. In the universe of sales, these are the people who are always passing out their business cards at every event they attend. They can give a punch and take a punch.🥊 In fact, they have been punched in the face so many times that they don’t even feel it. They just keep right on swinging. You might find it as obnoxious as the overly sculpted weightlifter, but they get results and they know it. If you had those muscles, who’s to say that you would be any different? You don’t have to be that muscle bound sales guy to have good upper body strength, but you have to at least try. You can’t always be like a jellyfish in an ocean of sales hoping that something will float through your area of water in close enough range that hopefully you can sting it. You need to start working those arms, chest and abdominal muscles by going out and seeking new business. Pick up the phone 📞 and call on new business opportunities. Go knock on some doors 🚪 and meet new people. Send out an email to a person who does not know you. Send a LinkedIn request and start a conversation with someone that might be a great fit for what you sell. Get yourself a Scorecard that focuses on your upper sales body and keeps you swinging. I promise you that your customers are out there, but they are waiting for you to find them and if you won’t prospect to see where they are, your competitors will find them instead. Don’t worry if you get punched in the face. Even though it is unpleasant, it hurts less and less each time. If you don’t work your upper sales body, then everyone will think (know) that you are a sales wimp. Ouch. Let’s save that topic for the next article.
