The Prospecting Pyramid

When you get into the office in the morning and hit the phones who do you call first?

Last month we were hired by a company to develop a prospecting training manual for their outside sales team. The goal was to build a sustainable, standardized process for qualifying and setting appointments with new prospects as well as provide an ongoing training regimen for keeping prospecting skills sharp. Prior to the economic downturn the company had been growing fast but recently the sales team had failed to hit its sales targets. Worse, they were going on a lot of meetings with prospects who were less than ideal. Because of this, a huge amount of time and money was being wasted on travel and product demos with prospects who could not or would not buy. The CEO was looking to us to reverse this trend.

Our first step was to just sit and watch the sales team make their morning prospecting calls. The good news is they were well equipped. They had a functioning CRM which was packed full of leads, a modern phone system, and a well-lit, well-appointed sales bullpen. The Director of Sales expected his sales team to be on the phone qualifying and setting appointments starting at 8am. I introduced myself to the team and then took a seat in the corner and just observed the calls. I kept my eye on the sales rep in the cubicle closest to me in particular.

After an hour of watching this rep I stopped him and asked a simple question. “When you pick up the phone each morning who do you call first?” He looked dazed and confused and I could see that he was searching for the right answer. Finally he replied, “The first prospect on the list.”

It was clear from the sales results the team was turning in, that collectively they shared the same philosophy. And I had watched them in action. There was no rhyme or reason to their prospecting pattern. They just showed up in the morning, opened up their CRM and called the first lead on the list. They were wasting huge amounts of time randomly dialing through their database. No plan. No objective. No qualifying methodology. The result was a bunch of useless face to face sales appointments with poorly qualified prospects, a miserable prospecting experience, and missed quotas.

So, not being able to help myself, I gathered the team together and drew a triangle or pyramid on the whiteboard on the bullpen wall. I asked the question again, “When you pick up the phone in the morning who do you call first?”

Again, blank stares, until one of the young reps said, “The first person on the list?”

With that I asked, “Where does the list come from?”

They answered, “From our territory database in the CRM.”

I followed that up with, “Is it possible to sort that list in some meaningful way?” The heads were nodding.

Then I asked, “Ideally which prospects should you call first when you get to the office each morning?”

They were thinking a little harder now. Finally someone blurted out, “The ones most likely to buy!”

I shouted, “Bingo! That is exactly right. Your first call should be to prospect most likely to buy. And who are these prospects?”

Now they were thinking. Someone blurted out “Prospects who have a budget.” Someone else, “Prospects who have expiring contracts with competitors.” Someone else, “Prospects who were referrals.” Then more, “Prospects we met at the recent trade show. Prospects who called in looking for information. Prospects who are fully qualified but whom we’ve been unable to set appointments with.”

They were getting it. You see, in every sales database there are prospects who are more qualified than others. A certain number of these prospects move into the buying window every day. When they are in the buying window, you have a higher probability of closing the sale. So who should you call first?

The most qualified prospects who are most likely to set an appointment with you and buy. 

The thing is, there are only a handful of these highly-qualified prospects on any given day. So these prospects go in the point at the top of the pyramid. The next group will be less qualified and so on until you get to the bottom of the pyramid where you have hundreds or thousands of leads with little solid information on them.

But if each day you start at the top of the pyramid and set quality appointments early, you will have time left over to systematically qualify the other leads in your database and put them in position to move to the top of your pyramid. Over time, this will result in successful prospecting blocks, a dynamic prospect database, and a full pipeline.

Here is an exercise: tomorrow morning when you get ready to make your prospecting calls, take a look at the first name on your list and ask yourself, “Is this the best prospect to call?” Then get familiar with the filters and sort tools on your CRM program and build your own prospecting pyramid.
This is Jeb Blount, the Sales Guy. If you have a sales question please send it to salesguy@quickanddirtytips.com.