No that title isn’t a typo, some kind of “link bait” nor is to meant to imply that in 15 short minutes you can achieve “Prospecting Greatness”.

I just thought it would be cool to offer you a series of 15 minute “workouts” to help you strengthen your prospecting muscles.

The first thing you need to know, is how to approach these 15 minute workouts.

If you ever played a sport, you didn’t just hit the field and play . . . you stretched and limbered up. Although, in the spirit of honesty, Woody Harrelson did offer a compelling counter argument in the movie Zombieland when he said “You ever see a lion limber up before it takes down a gazelle?”

Digressions aside, we need to limber up before hitting the phones. Here’s how:

1)    Use your drive time (to work) to rehearse a call or two you have that morning. Get your vocal chords awake and locked and loaded to kick some prospecting hiney when you get to the office.

2)    During that same drive, call your voice mail at the office and leave yourself a) Your usual voice mail that you would leave a prospect b) Your typical phone message that you would communicate if there were a live individual (even a dead one) on the other end of that call. When you get to the office, evaluate. First of all, how is your overall message? Is it compelling? Have you referenced something specific to your prospect’s business or are you going for a “smiling and dialing” motif? Do you sound believable? How are your “ums” “you knows” and “basically” How is your pace? And a big one . . . how is your pitch? The reason why it’s a big one is because when most people get nervous their pitch can elevate up several thousand octaves which can turn your call into a Mickey Mouse fest right quick.

3)    Spar With A Team Mate: Call a team mate and offer your message as you usually would. They will then throw objections at you which you are to respond to. Kick it up a notch by forcing each other to respond with 3 different rebuttals. The purpose of having 3 is that it will condition you to have a mentality of “How shall I respond” instead of “Can I respond?” Big difference dude.

4)    Sparring . . . On Steroids! Get your sales team together and take turns responding to the objections they each throw at you. And none of this respond to one objection and we move to the next rep BS. Each person needs to go multiple rounds! Participants can tell the respondent “I don’t like that response, give me another”Be tough on each other.

Note: You need to always train tougher than reality. Don’t ever forget that!

5)    Make some “Exploratory Calls”. These are calls that you make to find out contact information, prior to the actual call. This way you can avoid the lameassness of showing people you don’t have a clue and do the old “Can I speak with the person who blah, blah, blah” Doing this will give you a sort of “twofer” in that it helps you warm up and give you contact names for the future.

Note: Make sure you keep this one as a 15 minute exercise. Otherwise it can become a safe activity that you might cling to.

6)    If you have some non sales calls to make, consider using them as warm up as well.

7)    Make sure you get up and move when you do 5 and/or 6. Doing so creates energy. Motion creates emotion! Didn’t Ben Affleck say that during his “Act as if” rant in “Boiler Room”? And there’s a cool warm up. Watch that movie and make a note to do none of those things!

8)    Tape your end of some prospecting calls and do what all good teams do “review the tape”. See if you can identify the key moments when a call may have gotten away from you as well as those moments when the stars aligned to spell “You Rock!” I love it when the stars do that! Once you identify even 1 or 2 new distinctions, get on the phone you enlightened prospecting mofo you!

I’d say you have enough here to keep you out of trouble for a while. 

Enjoy your workout 🙂