by Will Rotondi
With very rare exception, you’re not going to be able to close a deal the moment you reach out and connect with someone new. It’s why prospecting has been compared to long distance running, not sprinting.
Just like any run, you aren’t going to perform well consistently without any training. Some days will feel easier than others, where you put in your time, run the course, and wrap up with very little effort. Other days, you’ll feel like you haven’t covered any ground, even though you feel exhausted. Then there will be those moments when the temperature is just shy of freezing, the wind has picked up, and you’re seriously reconsidering why you ever started down this path.
Why can’t the finish line be right there? Why won’t people open my emails and buy from me?
However you feel in the moment about your prospecting efforts, keep doing something. Find more people to reach out to. Craft a new email message to send to them. Ask a different question. Reach back out to those who you tried last week.
If you don’t put in a little effort each day, the less likely you are to commit to it. Think of it like prospecting inertia. It gets easier the more you do it, and the more you do it, the closer you get to your goal.
It may not be today, but you’ll still feel better than you would if you’d never given it a go.
