A true picture of waste and lack of direction is the salesperson who begins the workday with honest intentions, but with no idea who to contact to make a sale or presentation.

Unless you form the habit of prospecting...
Unless you develop and sharpen that habit into an obsession...

Your day's work will be aimless, 
And, you will accomplish nothing. 

The name of the game is prospecting!

It's a fact of life that can neither be rationalized nor overlooked: the salesperson who is not prospecting is not selling!

Not long ago, a large direct-sales organization conducted a nationwide survey to determine exactly what part of the selling process was most difficult for sales people...

• THREE PERCENT of the sales people polled said the approach was most difficult.
• SIX PERCENT said representation was the hardest.
• TEN PERCENT experienced the most difficulty with closing... 
• BUT, FORTY-NINE PERCENT were honest enough to admit that prospecting was the most difficult phase to master.

It means that no matter how skilled or successful you are now, you can be beaten by anyone who masters the art of prospecting.

It is IMPERATIVE that you develop a consistent and ongoing system of prospecting.  This is not something that you just do on Monday.  It is something you do at least six days a week until you develop:

 a prospecting AWARENESS, 
 a prospecting CONSCIOUSNESS, 
 a prospecting ATTITUDE, and 
 a prospecting HABIT.

There are two kinds of people in the world: those who KNOW and those who DON'T KNOW.

Who do you know in every area that can be a resource or piece of your network that can lead you to a prospect?  The daily habit of prospecting will add to your system, will add to your sales expertise, and more importantly, will add to your enthusiasm and increase your effectiveness in every area of marketing.

The foundation of all successful sales people is prospecting.

I became quite famous years ago for developing a prospecting system in the marketing organizations I headed. One of my favorite lines (which has been quoted thousands of times) is: I would rather be a master prospector than the wizard of speech and have no one to tell my story to.

Your prospecting consciousness is the KEY to your business, the SOURCE of your sales achievements, and the BEGINNING of each successful day.

Prospecting is to successful selling as breathing is to living.

The SUCCESSFUL SALESPERSON must prospect all the time - every day, every hour, every minute - in order to survive and to win!

In successful selling,