What’s the Best Day to Prospect?

Peady’s Selling Engagement sponsored by IRD Prospector

 Welcome to this week’s post on sales and selling success.

When is the best day to prospect for new business? Some salespeople will say Monday or Tuesday. Others say never on Friday! While another group will say the best day to prospect is any day they can get around to it!

Or should you take a more scientific approach using hard data? Rather than prospecting whenever you have an hour or two to kill.

According to a study by InsideSales.com, Thursday is best followed by Wednesday. The research explains that salespeople stand a greater chance to connect with a prospect via phone and qualify that buyer on these days. 

It might seem logical that Tuesday would come in at third. But no, the second day of the work week is actually the worst day to prospect!

But aren’t cold calling and prospecting dead?

Ad-libbed and unprepared cold calling is dead (and always has been)! But well prepared, well researched calls can be effective if you are prepared to persevere.
 
Truth is most salespeople fail miserably at cold calling however, another group enjoy a massively unfair share of the success. Unfortunately, there’s a large divide between the cold calling “haves” and the unprepared cold calling “have-nots”

Six cold calling tips that work in 2018:

–      Research the business andperson being called
–      Have a 3 scripts or roadmaps with a powerful “why”

o  A voicemail version 
o  A gatekeeper version
o  A prospect version

–      Don’t sell the product or service – sell the appointment
–      Have a strategy to handle the push-back or objections you’ll get
–      Record every call (good and bad) so you can learn from them
–      Use data and constantly review your metrics 

So where will your sales manager find you next Wednesday and Thursday?

Until next week good prospecting and selling!

 

About the author 

Stephen Pead is a media industry veteran of 30 years with significant experience in direct sales, sales management and general management. He is based in Sydney and specialises in helping SME’s market their businesses more effectively and providing training for salespeople and sales managers.

He can be contacted at [email protected]