What Things Would You Want to Learn about Prospecting?

Great point. Here's the structure of what I have outlined so far. The course goes into the following prospecting methods:

• Electronic Messaging
• Cold Calling
• Direct Mail
• Social Media
• Voice Broadcasting

As most of the warriors here know, some of these prospecting activities would not be suitable for B2C. Some won't be suitable for B2B. Some would be better to use as supplementations for other marketing activities. For example, I mainly use Social Media for my clients I have as a re-marketing strategy, not as a direct sales piece.

While I understand everyone wants a unique product for their business, what most products end up giving you is a half-assed bit-sized product with little to no information on it. That's why in most products there are upsells for coaching/consulting. To get specific insight to your business or specific action plans to better your business, you'll need specific knowledge of your business.

There's the other problem with a lot of products. They aren't teaching you what prospecting is or how you do go about prospecting. They teach you a specific business model that has worked for them in their situation. They give you a 'blueprint' to run with so it's 'easy' or 'quick'. Prospecting, like any real business activity has to be modeled and changed numerous times in order to get the final product.

I've read a lot of posts here about telemarketing or sales scripts. In my course for example, it won't spoon feed you a script, that in all courses people just change words and run with it, but it will teach you a specific way in structuring scripts to see better results. What are the components of a good sales script, etc.

People still think a pushy sales script works for them all the time, and most often they are just pitching unqualified prospects that wouldn't buy from you even if you were selling them a money tree. I could probably design a cold-calling course with over 10 hours of content if I were to go deep enough. Even still, that course wouldn't be specific to any one-person's needs would it? That's why successful marketers or entrepreneurs buy products or training, to grab nuggets they can apply to their own businesses.

If I were to create a course about B2B service prospecting and then a course of B2C service prospecting, a ton of the information would be repetitive. Why? The finesse in prospecting follows the same rules and tactics, regardless of what industry you're in.

Just my thoughts at least.

That's a very good point. I have covered qualifying questions in regards to calling, but the pre-qualification process is equally important. Pre-Qualification is actually a huge part in prospecting, not only on the phone but in every aspect of prospecting. Great addition, I'll definitely add that in.

I appreciate it. Although most courses focus on selling and building a specific business model, most courses neglect prospecting altogether. This is the second stage of creating my video course: Industry Research.

What better place to get ideas on what to include than an active section of either seasoned Offline Marketers tired of seeing crap and rehashed products thrown together and new offliners that are currently creating a system based off of pieces of the puzzle?

Knock it off, Claude!

I'm getting tired of thanking you.

First of all, great contributions from both of you. To clarify what I am doing, I am not just gathering information about prospecting methods (i.e. email marketing) tell them how to do it and show them how to profit from them.

I am providing specific examples on what I've used in the past and the results from what I've done and used with clients I've gotten as well. Now there's two dilemmas that I see moving forward.

If you get too specific, a 'prospecting' course would hit well over 50 hours of content, especially if you are going deep into the content I am currently working on. If it's too general, but there's a lot of information on each subject, advanced/intermediate marketers won't get anything out of it, where as newbies would be very much overwhelmed.

Second dilemma, most WSOs or Products out right now don't teach like they do in educational facilities. They teach the "This is what I've done, if you do it exactly how I do it, it works." Then they said "Just keep doing it, you'll make it eventually". That's the same problem that if I say this is exactly what I do, and only teach the things I've specifically done, people just copy and paste or try to replicate it for their own business without taking into consideration the multiple variables that are in play.

For example: Claude and I run successful marketing companies. We prospect differently because our own methodologies and the way we think work differently. Perhaps Claude is better on the phone, etc. We both have different skill sets that we have grown and have learned to use appropriately. What works for Claude may not work for me. It may work well for me.

What my goal/intent with this product, is not to exploit a market that is untapped, but actually give the marketplace a proven decent source of information to tap into. I haven't begun recording, and the course may be far longer than what I initially anticipate, however, what I want is an actionable approach that real marketers, business owners and consultants can use and apply into their business models.

So, for example, in the cold calling section, I go over principles and proven methods that I've used and have seen others use to write scripts and elaborate on them. I speak about tonality and how mirroring and matching works. I explain that (as far as prospecting goes) that maybe starting off, pitching everyone works. But to be effective, you have to ask the right questions to get them to qualify and get into their psyche and keep control over the conversation. I teach how to ask those qualifying questions and how to write scripts that let the caller keep control. I put in exact verbage I use over the phone as examples, but the goal is to teach the "How" and the "Why", not the "What"

The ultimate goal is to teach a comprehensive prospecting course that will allow the student to formulate a prospecting system that works for their strengths and their product, not to essentially show them what works for me.

I think it's on me to find a reasonable balance that will make the course complete and effective, without trying to sell a course with too much content.

Edit: To make sure it's mentioned, the topics and prospecting information I am using is primarily based on my own experience and my knowledge of how the human mind works, both on n unconscious and a conscious level. I've not compiling any information that I myself have not used nor tested.

You don't need 50 hours. Pick the methods that you used in prospecting that can be adapted by just about everyone.

When I wrote my book on prospecting, I could have written 1,000 pages. But nobody wants to read 1,000 pages. So I just included my prospecting methods that I knew were completely transferable to any industry. Then I changed the parts specific to a market, to make them a tad more universal. And you don't need an exhaustive exploration of every method.

It takes a few decades to be great at selling. At least it did me. You can't include everything you know. Give a good overview of the steps, include actual scripts you used (or your clients used), on maybe the top 12 methods.

I'm going to suggest you buy a few books on prospecting, to get a feel of what they cover.

I know, your product is more than a book. But don't kid yourself, most good sales books contain more information than a typical 3 day marathon seminar.

I now have my third sales book almost complete. I'm going to essentially take the three books, and edit them into 12 hours of methodology. I'll add a little more content, add a few more examples, but it's about the same thing as just reading my three books. That's about 12 hours. I'm also hiring an actor to play prospect when I show actual scripts.

Anyway, it's going to sell for about a grand. I'm not selling it here. This isn't my niche. I'm mentioning it because you should be seeing what best selling books on prospecting are talking about. Books only sell for maybe ten bucks. But the difference between a $300 manual and a book? The binding. Also, read the reviews on Amazon. This will tell you what your customers actually like and don't like.

Don't copy the content from the books. Just use them as a template to show you how to put this product together. You may also want to go on e-bay and buy a few old courses on sales prospecting. You know, 12 CDs, a few videos, a manual...it will give you formatting ideas. That's what I did when I decided to build my advertising package.

I think I just fell in love ....