PROSPECT: The Wednesday Word #WednesdayWisdom
INTRO: Today’s word, short of closing the sale, is the most valuable skill any one could ever develop.
WORD: Prospect (noun and verb)
DEFINITION of Prospect:
(noun)
- the possibility or likelihood of some future event occurring.
“there was no prospect of a reconciliation” - a person regarded as likely to succeed or as a potential customer, client, etc.
“clients deemed likely prospects for active party membership” - an extensive view of landscape.
“a viewpoint commanding a magnificent prospect of the estuary”
Synonyms (noun):
command, lookout, outlook, panorama, perspective, view, vista
(verb)
- search for mineral deposits in a place, especially by means of experimental drilling and excavation.
“the company is also prospecting for gold” - look out for; search for.
“the responsibilities of salespeople to prospect for customers”
Synonyms:
explore, hunt, probe, search, skirr
ETYMOLOGY of Prospect:
late Middle English (as a noun denoting the action of looking towards a distant object): from Latin prospectus ‘view’, from prospicere ‘look forward’, from pro- ‘forward’ + specere ‘to look’. Early use, referring to a view of landscape, gave rise to the meaning ‘mental picture’ (mid 16th century), whence ‘anticipated event’.
Prospect: The Wednesday Word ACTION IDEAS:
Do you work on or in a business? All businesses have one main problem. It’s the first problem a business and all their employees will have to solve in order to be profitable.
In Sell Or Be Sold Grant teaches us that contrary to Harvard, businesses don’t fail because they’re undercapitalized, they fail because they didn’t sell enough at margins high enough.
Which means what? If you don’t have someone to sell to, you’re toast. So your biggest problem is, because it’s your company’s biggest problem is obscurity. If people don’t know you, that can’t do business with you.
PERIOD!
You and your company cannot be successful without prospecting. And as Grant also says, “the solution to all problems in sales is a full pipeline.”
- Prospecting is everyone’s job. This is not just the salespeople’s job. It’s everyone’s responsibility to help and participate in the generation of leads and prospects that turn into sales and revenue.
- Prospecting needs to be done everyday. The media is running on a 24 news cycle prospecting for your client’s and potential client’s attention. That’s what you’re up against.
Bottom line: A business needs traffic and opportunities, people talking about you, people coming to see you and people for you to go see. Prospecting, short of closing the sale, is the most valuable skill any one will ever develop. And the truth is if you are a great closer but have no prospects—you have nobody to close.
