Do You Know What to Do When Finances are Tight?

It is no mystery that it can be a challenge to be successful in sales when the economy is struggling.  Many people are pinching pennies, budgeting carefully, and will be wary of spending extra money, no matter how revolutionary and life-changing your product or service may be.  But there is a way to make sales happen even when finances are tight.  So what is the secret to keeping your business “recession-proof”?  Mastering the skill of prospecting.  

Prospecting is promoting any business opportunity to people you don’t know. It’s easy to get discouraged before your efforts begin to pay off, but by applying the tried and true principles of prospecting, you can accelerate the learning process and get tangible results sooner. Your first step to
sales success in financially hard times is recognizing the three laws of prospecting: 

1st Law of Prospecting

The list of people who don’t know you is infinitely larger than the list of people who do know you. 

2nd Law of Prospecting

People who don’t know you will take you more seriously than the ones who do know you. 

3rd Law of Prospecting

Some of the people we pass in everyday life would be hugely successful in our business, but unless we prospect them, we’ll never know which ones they are. 

Let’s take a closer look at these three laws of prospecting. First, once you form the habit of prospecting strangers, you will never run out of prospects. This law gives you a major advantage in building your business. After all, people are turning 18 faster than you have time to talk with them. You have a nearly limitless list of potential prospects!  Prospecting
strangers is particularly important in financially hard times because you open up your prospecting “pool” to those who may not be affected by a bad economy. 
Many reps will often get better results talking to strangers than to people they already know. Why? Ironically, you have more credibility with strangers than with your friends and family. The second law of prospecting spells this
out. Besides, if you don’t start meeting new people, what will you do when you get to the end of the list of people you already know? 
Third, we pass people every day who are prime candidates for our sales presentations. Unfortunately, that is exactly what most reps do – pass them by. Starting up a conversation with someone you don’t know can be daunting. How do you begin? Is there a magic formula of what to say? 

Asking Magic Questions 
What in the world is a “magic” question? A magic question is the capstone of a prospecting conversation. Magic questions determine whether the prospect wants to learn about your business. A few examples of magic questions are: Are you making all the money you can stand? Do you ever feel you’re worth more than you’re getting paid? An effective magic question makes it hard for the prospect to say “No,” and easy to say, “Yes!” 

Catching the Prospecting Moment 
A prospecting moment is the point in a conversation that represents the optimum time for you to ask your magic question. The goal of the prospecting conversation is to create a fertile verbal environment in which the prospecting moment can occur naturally and within the available timeframe. Once you have mastered the principles of prospecting, you will orchestrate prospecting
conversations at will. 
Signed, Sealed, and Delivered 
With practice, the entire process of asking the magic question and having the prospecting conversation at just the right moment will transpire naturally. The prospect will never even realize what’s happened. You will be an artist, and every conversation will be your canvas. And before you know it, you will be seeing tangible results of success in your business despite the tough financial climate.  So get out there and start prospecting!