Below, you will find eight simple questions about your personal approach to prospecting. From the options provided, choose the answer that most accurately describes your own choices and behaviors when it comes to initiating business discussions with new contacts.
Which sentence best describes your prospecting philosophy?
A. "What’s a prospecting philosophy?"
B. “Work hard, make more calls.”
C. “Social networks + schmoozing = success.”
D. “I make a point of doing a little bit of everything – and I consider everything I do, including social interactions outside of the workplace, to be a potential prospecting activity.”
Which sentence would you say most accurately describes the number of referrals you get each month?
A. "What’s a referral?"
B. “One or two.”
C. “More than one or two.”
D. “More than enough, and I get them consistently because I follow a process for generating them.”
Which of the following options describes your preferred mode of communication when it comes to prospecting?
A. Irrelevant. People contact me, not the other way around.
B. Email.
C. Phone.
D. Videoconferencing, supported by other modes as necessary.
Where do most of your leads come from?
A. What leads?
B. Marketing gives them to me.
C. Marketing gives me some, and some I generate on my own.
D. I generate them all on my own, either from client referrals or as a result of my own outreach, using information from multiple platforms such as Twitter and LinkedIn.
Which of the following responses best describes your prospect pipeline?
A. “Um … full, yeah … definitely, definitely full, sure – but please, please, whatever you do, don’t let my manager try to verify that by reaching out to any of those people. Some of them I haven’t heard from in months.”
B. “Trickling in.”
C. “Comes and goes.”
D. “Overflowing with opportunity, and I am comfortable with my boss calling any of them.”
Which of the following methods would you say is your “go-to” lead generation strategy?
A. Sending emails.
B. Making cold phone calls.
C. Interacting on social media.
D. Asking current clients/customers for referrals.
How many hours per week do you devote exclusively to prospecting?
A. 0-4
B. 5-8
C. 9-15
D. 15 or more
How many unscheduled voice-to-voice discussions does it typically take for you to generate a single appointment for a discovery call?
A. More than 20 (or: “I don’t ever do this.”)
B. 10-19
C. 6-9
D. 5 or fewer
Now it’s time to score your answers. Give yourself:
- 1 point for every A response
- 2 points for every B response
- 3 points for every C response
- 4 points for every D response
Your Prospecting Style Is:
- 8-12 points: California Dreamer. You are relying primarily on hope and good fortune to hit your numbers.
- 13-19 points:Panner. You are probably doing minimal prospecting and working too hard to generate opportunities when you do prospect.
- 20-24 points: Prospector. You have a process, but you aren’t working it consistently or generating the referrals that you could be generating to identify new opportunities.
- 25 or more points: Gold Miner. You are regularly getting referrals and introductions through your great client relationships.
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