Prospectors make things happen.

This quote by Aaron Ross speaks volumes:

If you’re in a prospecting role, your success and salary both depend on getting your foot in the door. This puts us in a tough spot because you start seeing people as numbers that you need to dial or an email that your need to send so you can get through your list.

When I first started in business development, I used to get emotional when I’d see prospects open my emails but not reply or when they said yes to a meeting but asked to reschedule which never happened after. It took me a couple months and then I finally realized:

“You’re the least of the prospect’s priorities.”

They have several day to day problems that they’re trying to tackle. Even family or career related priorities can get jumbled into their mind. This means that your job as a prospector isn’t to sell them. Your job is to inform them about your product or service that could take one problem off their plate. This mindset changes everything because every email that you send or every phone call that you make will be positioned from a perspective to help make their life better.

This also means that you can’t expect them to reply to shitty outreach which is focused on your product features and how much money your company has raised. Talk about them, not you.

When they don’t reply to your emails or calls, your followup should be designed to keep your product or service top of their mind. Lot of times they’ve seen your messages but they might’ve forgot to reply to it.

It’s never personal, you’re doing your job and they’re doing theirs. Tailor your outreach on making their job easy or making them look good, it’ll do wonders.