The Seven Types of Prospectors

The Pusher

Also known as "The Intimidator," this type of prospector relies on old school high-pressure selling tactics to generate the results he seeks. The Pusher operates under the misguided belief that he is selling a product that cannot be sold any way other than to push it and his presentation onto his prospects.

The Pusher focuses more on the sale than anything else. To him, the sale and "what's in it for him" takes precedent over the customer and the value his customers can expect from purchasing his product.

The Pusher often puts his personal needs and objectives above his customers'. As you can imagine, The Pusher has more returns and cancellations than any other type of prospector.

Whether he feels pressure from his competition, internal pressure from his supervisor to perform, or believes that his product is a commodity in an over saturated market, he relies on fear tactics and other manipulative tools to turn a prospect into a customer. This prospector typically shows no regard for the prospect or their best interests.

The Pusher isn't too concerned about developing relationships since he believes that once a sale is made, there's no opportunity for future sales or referrals.

To pull off this approach to the point where it would demonstrate some measurable results, The Pusher is typically an assertive and confident individual. However, he is typically driven by his ego to look good and outperform the rest of his team.

Ironically, with all the confidence this prospector possesses, The Pusher doesn't have enough faith in himself or in the product to attempt to cold call any other way. This belief is often fostered within a sales culture that has been a long time promoter of this particular style of selling. At one point or another, The Pusher was told, "This is how our product has always been sold. This is how the top producers do it and how it has to be done. There's no other way to sell it." As such, this prospector truly believes that this is the only way for him to sell his product.

The Pusher is a hard, relentless closer and feels he only gets one shot at each prospect. He adheres to the "one call close" mentality, which is, "You only get one chance to sell each prospect." He believes that there will be no other opportunity to sell them again. While his enduring persistence can be appreciated, he will continue to try to sell each prospect he speaks with up until the point the prospect has had enough. Ultimately, The Pusher will wedge his foot in the prospect's door until they kick it out.

The Pontificator

Have you ever started a conversation with someone that you may have regretted ever starting? Not because they weren't interesting to talk with, engaging, personable, or even fun, but because they kept going and going and going and going and going! Like the Energizer Bunny, this prospector just doesn't know when to stop! And that's often due to the fact that they don't remember where they even started. The Pontificator will admit he doesn't follow any type of cold calling template, outline, or presentation. According to him, each prospect and cold call is unique. Instead, he shoots from the hip, making it up as he goes along. As a result, he often finds himself in a selling situation that he is unprepared for. Interestingly, The Pontificator thrives on situations like this. Now, he has an opportunity to once again create a new approach off the cuff!

Like many of these prospectors mentioned, The Pontificator feels that his approach actually works. And quite frankly, it often does but not for the reasons he thinks. The results The Pontificator realizes are more a function of this person's other admirable traits that compensate for the weakness in his prospecting system and where he falls short.

This type of person is often fun to talk with and be around. The Pontificator is the type of prospector that can talk to anyone and immediately make another person feel comfortable. This character strength becomes a crutch to his prospecting approach; often blinding him from the need to further systemize his approach. As a matter of fact, the only thing consistent about this prospector is his inconsistency regarding his cold calling approach.

Tip from the Executive Sales Coach:
Enthusiasm sells. Enthusiasm plus a prospecting system sells even more.

The Pontificator is all about exploiting his charming and gregarious personality. He possesses a strong belief about what he is selling. His conviction and passion about what he does and the value he can deliver comes across in his communication. The excitement, energy, and exuberance this prospector displays is contagious! The Pontificator’s enthusiasm does most of the selling for him. As a result, people love to do business with him.

Since there are many salespeople with great personalities who are engaging, friendly, and love to be in the spotlight, this type of prospector is the most popular of all. . While this approach seems to work for many salespeople, the lack of a strategic cold calling system puts a ceiling on his performance.

The Sprinter

If The Sprinter had a mantra for prospecting it would probably be, "From 'Hi' to 'Bye' in 30 seconds." The Sprinter is the athlete of prospectors. Acting as if cold calling is a race, it's as if this prospector's goal is to beat the time he invested on his last call.

Unfortunately for him there are no extra points for getting through a cold call at backbreaking speed or in the shortest amount of time.

Also known as, "The Regurgitator," this “marathon runner” believes that if he can just get his pitch out, the prospect would be more inclined to buy from him. The Sprinter will spit up his entire presentation all over the prospect, without stopping for a breath or even for some feedback from his prospect. Would someone get out a mop and clean up this mess?

The Sprinter is oblivious to the fact that going faster doesn't get the prospect any more interested in what he has to say. If anything, it turns a prospect off because whatever this prospector is saying comes across more as a pitch rather than a conversation. (The prospect often misses what The Sprinter is saying anyway because he is talking way too fast!)

The Sprinter is a fast talker and focuses more on quantity rather than on the quality of each cold call. Because of his approach, his results are also skewed. Since he can make a large number of cold calls in such a short amount of time, he's sure to run into a sale every now and then. After all, even a blind squirrel is bound to trip over an acorn at one point or another.

This type of prospector has been known to offer unsolicited information to his prospects, since he isn't taking the time to truly listen to and understand each prospect's situation, goals, problems or concerns.

The Sprinter holds the belief that if you give the prospect an opportunity to say "No," they will. Therefore, he won't give the prospect the opportunity to do so!

There may be a fear on The Sprinter's side that sounds like this. "If the prospect does in fact say 'No' I will be unable to turn them around to the point where they say 'Yes.' As such, I would rather dump as much information on them hoping that my pitch will do the selling for me."

The irony here is that his approach is achieving what he wants to avoid the most. Not taking the prospect's pulse and forcing unsolicited information on the prospect puts the prospect in a defensive posture. The more you put a prospect on the defensive, the more objections and "No's" you are bound to create.

Tip from the Executive Sales Coach:
The quality of each call you make is always more important than the quantity of calls. Each call deserves the same care and attention that you put into the first call you make each day. Cold call and treat each prospect as if they were the most important prospect on your call list. If not, you'll find your call list dwindling into oblivion with no measurable results to speak of.

Lets face it. To make the volume of calls that The Sprinter makes in one hour, you've got to be highly organized. However, what this prospector needs to understand the most is this; cold calling is not a race. You don't get points for your intentions, only for your results.

The Copier

The Copier is one of the more elusive types of prospectors. What makes this type of prospector so elusive is that The Copier possesses some wonderful traits. This prospector is open to change, innovation, coaching, training, and personal growth with the intention to continually improve and evolve as a sales professional; yet almost to a fault. This wonderful trait often becomes his weakness.

You see, The Copier is on a quest for the perfect presentation.

This prospector is a voracious reader. Often self- taught when it comes to developing his core selling competencies, The Copier is excited to try any new cold calling approach that he can get his hands on as often as possible. In his search for the latest and greatest prospecting approach, like The Pontificator, he never gets to experience the benefit of consistency.

By continuously refining his cold calling approach, he never gets comfortable with one. The Copier has not yet become confident enough to trust his own communication style, strengths and talents. Instead, he relies on other people's proven methods to achieve his goals.

The Copier is seduced by the fancy closes he reads about that other salespeople have used with a great deal of success. As such, he often tries to memorize other salespeople's techniques verbatim without considering whether or not it fits his style or personality.

Unfortunately, The Copier tries to incorporate everyone else's style but his own. It's amazing this prospector gets any results at all since he never stays with one approach long enough to gauge it's effectiveness.

The Copier has been known to be a perfectionist. Often using his inability to find the perfect prospecting approach as an excuse for his performance. Moreover, The Copier tends not to prospect as much as he should be. Instead, the story he tell himself is, "I don't want to mess up a cold call and lose out on a potential sale. Therefore, I will only cold call once I can get my presentation down perfectly."

This prospector's intentions are sound; always wanting to better himself by investing his time in professional development so that he can maximize his cold calling potential. However, finding the ultimate cold calling approach becomes an exercise in futility. The Copier comes in at number three on the list of the most popular types of prospectors.

The Pleaser

The Pleaser takes the concept of customer service to a new level. This prospector has one ultimate goal; to make people happy. While this is certainly an admirable trait, it acts as a barrier to his cold calling efforts.

Because all The Pleaser wants to do is please, he is more timid in his approach. This prospector will do anything to avoid confrontation and stir the waters. As such, he collapses objections with confrontation.

In other words, if The Pleaser hears an objection or a concern that the prospect voices, rather than viewing this as a sign of interest, he takes the prospects' word as face value, without exploring their concerns at a deeper level. At the first sign of what he perceives as conflict, The Pleaser will do anything to appease his prospect. It's no wonder that this type of prospector has the longest "callback list" than any other type of prospector! Persistence is not one of the Pleaser's strong points.

This prospector is quick to send brochures or collateral material to his prospects hoping that his support material does the selling for him. (Is he missing the key word "support" in support material?)

As you can surmise, The Pleaser is a bit intimidated by his prospects as well as the cold calling process. Because of this fear, The Pleaser is reluctant to lose a prospect by asking the tough questions or attempting to overcome objections. Instead, he winds up keeping all of his prospects as prospects rather than moving them into the next step of his sales process so they can become customers.

Since The Pleaser is willing to do almost anything for a prospect keep them happy, he winds up delivering incredible value to his prospects. You see, The Pleaser is all about giving. Therefore, he rarely asks for anything in return, especially for the sale or the appointment. He's hoping that by providing so much value, the prospect will tell him that they are ready to buy or take the next step in the sales process.

Because of this, The Pleaser is the type of prospect that any salesperson would love to sell against! In his desire to keep his prospects happy and not upset them, The Pleaser actually winds up doing a disservice for his prospects and a service for his competition. Sure, he's educated the prospect, answered all of their questions and filled any requests. However, by not encouraging the prospect to take the next step, he has positioned this prospect to be taken away by the next competitor who calls on them. In essence, The Pleaser has just done all of the selling for his competition.

No one likes a pushy salesperson. However, there's nothing wrong with a little nudge once and a while. After all, there's a difference between being pushy and being persistent. With all of the good-hearted salespeople out there, The Pleaser comes in at number two on the list of the most popular types of prospectors.

The Educator

The Educator is a master of their trade, product, and profession. If you need to know technical data, statistics, and how the product works, he's the person to call.

This prospector is a true master of industry knowledge. He can tell you the who, what, when, where, why, and how as it relates to his product.

The Educator can even share information about his competitor's product and how they differ. It seems as if this prospector knows more about his competition's product than the competition does!

If there's an Educator on your sales team, chances are he has been called upon by management to help with product training and to provide industry knowledge for the new recruits.

This prospect is a talking spec sheet. After all, The Educator wants his prospect to make an informed and educated purchasing decision.

The Educator relies on his vast amount of product knowledge to hopefully impress a prospect into a sale. While he may be heavy on product knowledge, he often falls short on developing his selling and cold calling skills.

While product and industry information is certainly a crucial factor for most prospects to consider when making a purchasing decision, this "baffle them with brilliance" approach has been known to backfire on this prospector. In his quest to educate his prospects, he actually overeducates them by providing too much information. The more information a salesperson provides, the more information that needs to be processed and considered by the prospect. The more information the prospect needs to consider, the longer the selling cycle becomes.

Tip from the Executive Sales Coach:
Be cognizant of the amount of information that each prospect requires. Ask them what information they want to hear. Assuming they need to know everything is a surefire method to talking yourself right out of a sale.

In addition, by providing a deluge of information, what might have once been considered an easy purchasing decision has now been compromised and complicated. Instead of the prospect making an easy purchasing decision, they may now feel as if they don't have the time to make an informed decision until they get a chance to process all of the information this salesperson has provided.

As you can see, The Educator has the tendency to talk himself out of a sale. Similar to The Pleaser, The Educator often sets up a prospect for the next salesperson to come in and take away his business but only after he has taken the time to educate the prospect and do his competition a favor.

The Advisor

Finally, let me introduce the last type of prospector we will be discussing and the icon of professional prospecting; The Advisor.

This prospector is a model for what every sales professional should aspire to. The Advisor encompasses all of the good qualities that the other types of prospectors possess, yet without all of their foibles and pitfalls.

The Advisor possesses the:

The Advisor encompasses all of the positive attributes that encapsulate the ultimate prospector! The Advisor is a true doctor of the trade. The Advisor relinquishes all of the self-imposed pressure to perform or look good and manages a healthy prospecting mindset.

This prospector not only possesses the right mindset, but also the right tools and approach. Like a good doctor, he first asks questions and then listens to his prospect's responses. Before he offers a solution, he takes the time to understand each prospect's situation, goals and greatest challenge or problem rather than providing unsolicited information or advice. It is only then when The Advisor suggests some possible solutions to his prospect; solutions he knows will be a perfect fit for them.

Tip from the Executive Sales Coach:
Honor your authenticity. Ultimately, people buy from you because of you! Ask any of your customers. They buy from you because of who you are and the way you come across, which always takes precedent over what you do.

The Advisor takes the time to prepare for prospecting. He has a path to follow that encompasses his entire prospecting system. He's taken the time to craft the right questions in order to get the prospect involved in the conversation. Instead of memorizing fancy closes, The Advisor seeks to deliver value in every conversation and serve his prospect's best interests, regardless of whether or not they buy from him. As such, he encounters very little resistance and only minor objections when it’s time for him to invite the prospect to move forward.

Most important, The Advisor is authentic. He is true to himself without attempting to become someone who he is not. Rather, he utilizes the tools and approach that complement and are aligned with his personality, values, strengths, and talents.

As you can probably see, this book provides you with the tools that will enable you to become a true advisor to your prospects and clients.

If you are still unsure about the type of prospector that you most resemble, try this. Audio tape yourself giving your presentation. You can also ask your peers what type of prospector they think you most closely resemble. I'm sure they would be happy to tell you.

Once you uncover your dominant style, you will then have the choice to fine-tune your approach.

Take your life and career to the next level.

This article about determining the type of salesperson you are and your style of prospecting for new business. presented by Profitbuilders.com