Sales is not a numbers game

We’ve been told for an eternity that the sales profession is a numbers game, and it’s a popular belief today. The idea is that if we want to be successful in this business all we need to do is to call, call, call. If we do that, we’ll fill our pipeline with a gazillion suspects, who’ll turn into X number of prospects, opportunities and ultimately customers.

We’ve been led to believe that going after all those prospects is essential to our success. But what if it isn’t? I’m serious—what if trying to work all those prospects contaminates our thinking and causes us to behave badly? What if we could generate more sales with fewer prospects?

Most salespeople would say that’s heresy. But over and over again, I’ve seen that the top sellers are pursuing fewer and fewer prospects. Of course, they’re not just working fewer prospects. They’re working fewer prospects better.

Top sellers spend more time thinking critically about:

• The goals and objectives of their target audience
• What they can do to guide prospects through the sales cycle, and
• How to add value with every single interaction.

Their goal is to help prospects understand the business value of their solutions—and more important—how changing the status quo would impact their prospects’ organizations.