Sales Prospecting Perspectives

Back in the mid ‘90s, I was fresh out of college and managing a hotel front desk, with aspirations to one day become the General Manager. I quickly became accustomed to long hours and cranky business travelers, which most of us know can be challenging to say the least. At the time, a large percentage of my friends were living the high life at multiple tech company and making obscene amounts of money relative to their experience, as they were recent college graduates as well.

So, around the year 1999, I finally decided to take the plunge into the tech industry.

And within a year, the tech bubble burst.

While this was a difficult time for me, my adjustment to the downturn was much easier because of my experience in the hotel world. I wasn’t accustomed to having that silver spoon fed to me immediately after college graduation, unlike some of my coworkers. Man, were those people awful to be around when the crap hit the fan. Not one of them had the capability of dealing with any kind of adversity because they were accustomed to “just showing up” for work and watching their income double year after year.

In retrospect, the two values that my hotel experience instilled in me were work ethic and a realistic expectation of what that work ethic would produce.

Seems simple to me: You get out what you put in.

With the benefit of hindsight, I try my best to instill this mindset into every member of my sales prospecting team.

The goal is to focus on realistic success. Every new hire who is relatively new to the cold calling game needs to understand that they aren’t necessarily going to kill it out of the gates. Being a success in sales, more often than not, is an arduous process. There is no magic wand that you can wave to suddenly blow your number out of the waters. I like to impart an important piece of advice for new sales reps here: Actually take the time to absorb the knowledge we’ve obtained over the years (the hard way) at AG and if you’re methodical with your approach, you should inevitably see the positive outcomes we’re all anticipating.

Unlike in the pre-tech bubble days, deals aren’t just going to fall out of the sky. What AG makes abundantly clear to our teleprospecting team is this: we’ll provide you with the tools and the philosophy for being successful, but we can’t pick up the phone for you. Carve out the time out in your day to research, call, and uncover the sales opportunities we’re all trying to chase down.

It ain’t pretty advice - no one’s being fed a silver spoon here - but I think it’s good. Who ever said cold calling was easy, anyway? It’s all about the amount of time and effort you put in to make each call count.