Mark Hunter - High-Profit Prospecting: Powerful Strategies to Find the Best Leads and Drive Breakthrough Sales Results

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HIGH
PROFIT

PROSPECTING

Powerful Strategies to Find the Best Leads and Drive Breakthrough Sales Results

MARK HUNTER

Dedicated to my wonderful wife, Ann Marie.
Thank you for making the journey special in every way.

by Jeb Blount

by Mike Weinberg

by Mark Hunter

There is a raging epidemic in sales that is devouring sales performance, holding companies back from reaching growth objectives, wrecking sales cultures, and undermining the promising careers of sales professionals and sales leaders alike.

Today, the number one issue facing salespeople, sales leaders, executives, and entire companies is anemicand sometimes non-existentpipelines. Its the top complaint I get from C-level executives about their sales teams. Even as new tools and technology emerge that make identifying and connecting with prospects easier than ever, companies are struggling to get their salespeople to consistently prospect.

Prospecting skills are basic and foundational competencies for sales success. There is a direct line that connects the failure to prospect to the failure to produce sales. This is why eighty percent of salespeople who wash out and get fired in their first year do so because they are reluctant to prospect.

Yet over the past few years, Ive noticed a disturbing trend: More and more self-styled gurus are popping up and pontificating to the sales profession that one form or another of prospecting is dead. They pander to the salespeople who are scared of, or uncomfortable with, prospecting. Left in their wake are millions of vegetarian salespeople (as my friend Anthony Iannarino likes to call them) who cant or wont hunt.

Across the industry spectrum, salespeople are frustrated, failing, and earning far less than they should because they dont know how to prospect, have no guidance or structure for prospecting, and are confused by the endless stream of mixed messages. Sadly, and more often than not, instead of focusing time and attention on the root causes of their sales performance problems, they spin their wheels chasing flavor-of-the-day magic pills and easy buttons that frustratingly never seem to make a difference.

Sales leaders, who themselves are under intense pressure to produce results, find that driving their salespeople to build bigger prospecting pipelinesin many cases with yelling, screaming, and threateningis like pushing a rope, because their salespeople dont know what to do. Meanwhile, sales training programs rarely offer deep-dive training on prospecting. It is as if salespeople are supposed to come to the job with the innate ability to open new doors, a comprehensive set of prospecting techniques, the know-how to engage prospects across multiple prospecting channels, and the mental toughness to sustain unrelenting rejection.

The good news is that its relatively easy to accelerate prospecting and build massively productive sales pipelines. The key is a back-to-the-basics focus on sales prospecting techniques. This new focus begins with tuning out the pseudo experts who peddle their one-size-fits-all-easy-buttons and turning toward masters like Mark Hunter.

Mark has helped thousands of sales professionals reach peak sales performance and is a trusted advisor to hundreds of executives and companies across the globe. He is committed to teaching real prospecting tactics and techniques that work with real prospects in the real world. Marks been in the trenches just like you, and he knows his stuff. In this book, he will help you understand both the why and how behind the most important activity in sales. He will give you a road map for building and executing a daily prospecting plan that will get you into the front office and the C-suite. Step by step, youll gain the techniques and confidence youll need to fill your pipeline with high-quality and highly qualified prospects. Following Marks easy-to-understand formula, youll soon be reaching the upper echelons of your companys sales rankings. Get your highlighter out, because this is a book youll read, re-read, and refer back to often.

Its time to put prospecting back into sales.

JEB BLOUNT,

CEO of Sales Gravy (www.salesgravy.com/)
and author of the best-selling books Fanatical Prospecting
and People Buy You

Your sales pipeline is about to get fatter and healthier and your sales are going to go up. Why can I state that so confidently without knowing anything about you? Because theres a little secret that every top producer in sales knows, and its the same secret that Jeb Blount and Mark Hunter know, too: every true A-player sales hunter who consistently, quarter after quarter and year after year, delivers the numbers takes personal responsibility for identifying and creating their own sales opportunities. Sure, theyre more than happy to take a qualified lead when one is presented, but they know it falls on them to ensure that their pipelines of sales opportunities are always full. And what is this great secret that keeps pipelines full? Top producers prospectAll. The. Time.

My passion in sales is developing new business, and I spend my days with sales teams and salespeople observing whos succeeding and whos not. Would you believe that the most common reason salespeople fail to develop enough new business is that they either dont know how to prospect or dont want to prospect? It truly is that simple. And thats why High-Profit Prospecting is about to change the trajectory of your sales results, your career, and your life. After reading this book, you are going to know how to prospect effectively, and even better, you are going to want to do it!

In a powerful, clear, and actionable way, Mark provides you with exactly what you need to accomplish the promise of the books subtitle: find the best leads and drive breakthrough sales results. In a logical, easy-to-follow progression, Mark walks you through the whys and hows of effective prospecting. With a sharp sword, he slays the myths about prospecting and silences todays idiot sales gurus who wrongly proclaim that prospecting is dead (absolutely critical, because what we believe and what drives us has an even greater effect on our results than our selling skills.

help you plan your attack, point out the pitfalls and traps along the way, provide helpful definitions (contrasting prospects and suspects), and most importantly, make the case that time is your most precious resource. Dont blow through 6. Let Marks message soak in. Prospecting doesnt call you. There is always something more attractive, more urgent, or easier to do. If you dont carve out blocks of time for prospecting, it wont happen. And the harsh reality is that you might have a killer sales personality, the best phone technique, and sharpest sales story, but if you dont take back control of your calendar and set appointments with yourself to prospect, it wont happen. I like to say that no one defaults to prospecting mode, and Mark drives home that point as clear as day.