After spending hundreds of hours in the classroom or at the podium in front of audiences of all sizes, I can say with complete confidence that the vast majority of people in sales hate to prospect. I'd be a rich woman if I had a mere dime for every time a salesperson said to me, "If only they would give me "warm" prospects, I know I would close them." To be truthful, I've uttered something similar on a number of occasions.

We go into sales because we love people, we love the challenge, the money, etc. We never mention loving rejection on a daily basis. However, the bottom line is this. If you are not experiencing frequent rejection, you are not prospecting enough. Forgive me for being so blunt. It's not physics; it's sales. You make a bunch of calls, e-mail a bunch of notes, send a bunch of letters, and talk one-on-one with a bunch of folks and, voila, you meet with success. Something works, nothing doesn't.

Many a wise person has said that we teach what we need the most. That pretty much explains this article. For many of us the past three days have been a whiteout of snow, hail and wind. Shovel, come in, warm up and shovel. In between I was making calls and prospecting for all I am worth. Frankly I'd never realized how much prospecting feels like shoveling. You think you've made progress and you find yourself back where you started - or so it seems...

But, I am a believer in karma. Here's what happened. I was feeling frustrated and sorry for myself by being put off with the send me something or call next month stalls, when I happened to check my voicemail messages. There was just what I needed to put things back into perspective. One of my mentors, Gino Wickman, President of Floyd Wickman Courses, had left a message that answered this question, "What gets a prospect to call you back?" What he said makes a great deal of sense and applies to all kinds of sales. It applies because it is more about human nature than it is about sales per se. The principle being that people need time to make decisions and to feel comfortable.

Gino said that there are three nearly scientific things that cause a prospect to act: time, consistency and peer validation.

Time is critical to understand because it means months and sometimes years. If you call a person, let's say three times, and they put you off, you must think to yourself, "Good job. I'm right on track." If you convert a prospect into a client the first time you speak or meet with them, believe me, it's Divine intervention. Recent research shows that the turnaround time for a prospect to become a client has lengthened considerably due to many factors, not the least of which is the added competition of the Internet. On average you can safely anticipate an eight-month to 24-month time span between initial contact and conducting business. That is not true however unless the other two components are in place and operating simultaneously.

Consistency means that you keep in touch with them monthly. Contact may mean a note, e-mail, call, letter, drop-by, whatever. It means consistently and not hit or miss. People have to know a few things about you to be willing to do business with you. They have to believe you are dependable, tenacious, bring value to the table and really want their business. With the amount of competition today, there is always someone out there willing to do the job if you are less than enthusiastic. Let your prospects know that they are among the most important things in your life. Tell them, as my friend and ace trainer, Mary Johnson always says, that doing business with them would be a dream come true for you. If you really mean it, they will love hearing it! I know because it's been successful for me on many occasions.

Peer validation is one of the most powerful weapons you'll ever have in your sales arsenal. Nothing bodes better than an existing client (especially one the prospect knows and respects) telling your prospect that you are great. This can be achieved through testimonial letters and/or personal calls or notes. Use this tool sparingly and when you really need to push things over the top, so to speak. You sure don't want to wear out your welcome with your clients or waste your peer's assistance on a prospect who is not ready to act. Peer validation is the icing on the hardwork cake you've been baking for ages.

If you went into sales because you thought it would be easy to get rich and retire at forty, you were probably thinking of the stock market. Sales is for the strong-at-heart, the trooper who is willing to stick with it until they make the "deal" happen. We love the feeling of success when things do come together. It's kind of like childbirth - the pain vanishes quickly when we see the prize all of the pushing and grimacing garners. Understand that you will succeed when you focus on doing the activities, keep in touch regularly and bring value to the equation.

After all, wasn't it Scarlet O'Hara that said, "Tomorrow is another day"?

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