Fanatical prospecting
Ditch the failed sales tactics, fill your pipeline, and crush your number Fanatical Prospecting gives salespeople, sales leaders, entrepreneurs, and executives a practical, eye-opening guide that clearly explains the why and how behind the most important activity in sales and business development—prospecting. The brutal fact is the number one reason for failure in sales is an empty pipe and the root cause of an empty pipeline is the failure to consistently prospect. By ignoring the muscle of prospecting, many otherwise competent salespeople and sales organizations consistently underperform. Step by step, Jeb Blount outlines his innovative approach to prospecting that works for real people, in the real world, with real prospects. Learn how to keep the pipeline full of qualified opportunities and avoid debilitating sales slumps by leveraging a balanced prospecting methodology across multiple prospecting channels. This book reveals the secrets, techniques, and tips of top earners.
Stats for nerds
11recommend
15mentions
14people
2016–2024years
80% recommend13% neutral7% critical
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- Fanatical Prospecting and Objections by Jeb Blount.
These are very full-time-sales-oriented books, and they may be too much for what you need. That said, they might be spot on.
In general, I would:
1. Talk to your network. This will yield your warmest leads.
2. Find a niche of clients who really have a tough time finding people for whatever reason. A good example for tech might be small town governments — they have needs and money, but they don’t have knowledge/expertise or funds to hire a lot of full timers. Target those groups and/or find out what contractors work with those groups and sub with them.
3. (Related to above) Find a bigger agency and just subcontract out with them. This might be a little lean in terms of money at first, but it will introduce you to a specific industry space both in terms of problems and people who solve them.
Good luck!
- A while ago I picked up Fanatical Prospecting as an audiobook and I would recommend it if you’re getting started. Its all about the mindset needed to thrive in sales. One thing it will do is help you decide if sales is for you.
- Read Fanatical Prospecting. I hired a salesperson recently and found that book very interesting as someone who has no sales background myself.
Really the gist of it is twofold:
1. Somebody who just picks up the phone and dials prospects for an hour is going to do much better than someone who makes excuses and finds reasons to not dial. Even bad prospecting is generally better than no prospecting.
2. Cold calling is rarer than most people (even most salespeople) think. The numbers come from somewhere. Unless you’re dialing straight from the phone book, then the prospect is likely somewhat warm. Did they request info on your website at some point? Give you their card at a tradeshow? Those aren’t cold calls.
- I’ve read 3 trashy detective novels over the weekend but coming up I have:
* How to Measure Anything
* Deep Work
* This is How They Tell Me the World Ends
Recently though, I enjoyed Bob Igor’s book as well as Fanatical Prospecting (about inbound sales).
- Coincidentally, the current book I'm reading came from a recommendation by a lot of people on HN to the question of how to be a better sales person:
Fanatical Prospecting/Wiley by Jeb Blount
I'm half way through and it's a good read so far.
- Hi there - one of the few pro sellers on HN here.
You're planning on prospecting into one of the most rejection-heavy domains out there with small physical business. These people get dozens of calls per day from companies they've never heard of - many of whom are trying to rip them off - and even the best ones (Groupon, Yelp, google ads, etc.) are basically just rent-seeking. Oh, and most have gatekeepers who don't care the slightest bit about your pitch.
Because of that I'd stay away from all this "smile and dial" advice. You'll have no chance. Go out there and hit the pavement and meet these people at their establishments at off hours. If you catch the owner in there at a good time - do your best to inform them of your products benefits and come up with a really good offer to get started (something that loses you money and time). Free Trial, free month of services, whatever makes sense based on the context of your business. The goal is NOT to make money or build a book of business at this point - it's to get a person happy with your software to sell to later.
If the owner is too busy or whatever - have some stuff printed out for them to read later that you can drop off. Ideally with a small gift (coffee, food, candy, etc.) and come back in a few weeks to see if you catch them at a better time (again with a gift, until they talk).
A solid entry level book would be Fanatical Prospecting by Jeb Blount.
Good Luck.
*edit to fix book name
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