How to set up sales prospecting you keep doing when the week gets busy

Prospecting falls apart when the target is a year away and nobody knows what Tuesday needs. So start from the year and work back to the week.

Here's the example we'll use all the way down. The numbers are made up.

Say your target is 46 new deals this year. Take out about six weeks for leave and public holidays and you have 46 selling weeks, so the target is 1 deal a week.

You don't know your own ratios yet, so start with a guess and fix it in step 4:

48 calls over five days is 9.6, so call it 10 a day.

Go deeper: the sales activity calculator does this sum with your own target and rates, and working back from the month's target covers a team's number.

The calls that get skipped are the ones left for the afternoon. By then there's a proposal to finish and a client who wants a call back.

Put the calls in one block at the same time every day, before email. Ten calls, with a minute or two of notes after each, fit in about an hour. Have tomorrow's list ready before you finish today, so the block starts with dialling, not with looking for names.

If a day goes wrong, don't carry 10 extra calls into tomorrow. Twenty calls in one block rarely happens, and the missed day is easier to see when it stays missed.

Go deeper: the daily sales routine template lays out the day hour by hour, with the calls first, and the cold calling guide has what to say in the first 30 seconds.

Log each call when you put the phone down: who, what happened, and the next step. That includes the calls that went nowhere, because the calls with no answer are what your ratios are made of.

Log them after work and you're guessing; leave it till Friday and you're making it up. One line, straight after the call, is quicker than either.

Four things to count, every day: calls, conversations, meetings booked and deals. If you only count deals, a bad month shows up when it's too late to change it.

Go deeper: the sales activity tracker template has the columns, and the sales call log is the one-line-per-call version.

After four weeks you have your own numbers, and they beat any guess. Divide each step by the one before it.

In the example, four weeks of logging came to 200 calls, 40 conversations, 12 meetings and 3 deals:

Now redo step 1 with your own ratios. 1 deal needs 4 meetings. 4 meetings at 3 in 10 need 13.3 conversations, so 14. 14 conversations at 1 in 5 need 70 calls. That's 14 calls a day, not 10.

The guess was short by 4 calls a day, and over a month that's 80 calls you'd never have made.

Look at which ratio is weakest, too. If calls rarely turn into conversations, try calling at a different time of day. If meetings rarely turn into deals, more calls won't fix it; the meeting will.

Go deeper: how to work out your own ratios, the win rate calculator and what a conversion ratio is.

A meeting that ends with "I'll think about it" and no date is how prospects disappear. Every meeting ends with a next step and a date, agreed out loud, before you leave.

Keep your pipeline to a few stages a deal has to earn, such as Meeting booked, Met, Proposal sent and Deciding. Once a week, go down the list. Any deal with no date gets one, or comes off.

In the example, 4 meetings a week puts about 16 new deals in the pipeline a month. At 1 in 4, four of those 16 close. The rest need a next step or a clear no.

Go deeper: the sales pipeline management guide has the stages and a 30-minute weekly review, and the sales pipeline template is a board you can copy.

Most prospects don't answer the first call, and the follow-ups are the touches that get forgotten.

Decide the follow-ups before the first call goes out: which channel on which day, and when you stop. Six to eight touches over two to three weeks is a starting point to test. Put each one in your diary with a date, so day 7's call is on day 7's list.

Stop when they reply, book or ask you to stop, and after the last touch. Tell them the last one is the last one.

Go deeper: the sales cadence guide has three example cadences to copy and the Do Not Call rules to check first.

A referral is a meeting with someone who already has a reason to trust you. It's also the easiest prospecting to skip, because asking feels awkward.

Ask right after a good moment: a deal signed, a problem solved, a client who says thanks. Name the kind of person, not "anyone you know". For example: "Who else do you know who runs a team of five or six and still does the reporting on a spreadsheet?"

Then ask if you can mention their name, and get in touch within two days while they still remember saying yes.

Count referral asks the way you count calls. Two asks a week is a small number you'll actually keep.

Go deeper: what a referral is in a sales pipeline, and, for financial advisors, asking for referrals with the rules to check.

On Monday morning, write down the week's numbers: in the example, 70 calls, 14 conversations and 4 meetings. Then tell one person. A manager, a colleague, or a friend who'll ask on Friday.

A number you've said out loud is harder to let slide on a quiet Wednesday. Check it on Wednesday lunchtime. By then you should be about halfway, 35 calls in the example, and if you're not, there are still two and a half days to catch up.

Go deeper: the pledge sheet turns your target into a week's numbers you can sign and share, and a pledge is the word for it.

Twenty minutes on Friday afternoon. Four questions, answered from the week's numbers:

1. What did I do against Monday's numbers?
2. Where did the week drop: calls, conversations, meetings or deals?
3. Which deals have no next step or date?
4. What's next week's number, and what's the one thing I'll change?

Write the answers down. Next Friday, read last week's answer to question 4 first.

Go deeper: the weekly reflection template has these questions laid out, and the weekly sales report is the version for a manager.

A slump feels like bad luck, and the usual fix is to work harder at everything. Check the numbers first, because the fix depends on which one dropped.

• Calls dropped. It's the habit, not your skill. Go back to the morning block and the Monday number, and start with fewer calls a day than you think you need.
• Calls are fine but conversations dropped. Your list or your timing is off. Try new names, or call at a different time.
• Conversations are fine but meetings dropped. Look at what you say in the first minute.
• Meetings are fine but deals dropped. Look at what happens after the meeting: the next step, the proposal, the follow-up.

Deals this month usually come from calls made weeks earlier. So a slump often started with a week of skipped calls that nobody noticed. The Friday review in step 9 is how you notice.

Go deeper: what burns a sales team out, and, for new financial advisors, keeping going when most calls end in a no.

If you manage the team, your job in this system is the weekly one-on-one. Fifteen minutes with each rep, from their numbers, not from how the week felt.

Look at the same four counts the rep logs, and ask about the weakest step. "Your calls were on pace, but conversations dropped. What changed?" works better than "you need to make more calls".

Hold reps to the numbers they set on Monday, not to a number you set for them. When a rep misses two weeks running, talk about it that week, not at the end of the quarter.

Go deeper: sales accountability has what to say when a rep misses, the one-on-one meeting template has the agenda, and the one-on-one agenda generator fills it in from the numbers.

On a team, the week's calls should be visible without anyone asking. Everyone logs the same four counts, and the whole team can see them.

Start the week with a short team meeting that runs from the numbers: last week against the pledges, this week's numbers, and who's stuck. Keep deals and coaching for the one-on-ones.

If you show a leaderboard, count calls and meetings as well as deals, and reset it every Monday. Otherwise the same two names are on top every week, and the middle of the team stops looking.

Go deeper: the weekly sales meeting agenda runs the meeting in 30 minutes, and the sales gamification guide has ideas the middle of the board can win.

This guide is free, and ActivityTracker, the app we make, is paid. Here's what it does for each step.

• One tap logs a call, a meeting or a deal, so the week adds up without a spreadsheet
• Goals turn the year's number into what each month needs, and show by Tuesday if this week is enough
• Routines like 10 calls a day come back each day and show the week you slipped
• Follow-ups are dated and reminded, so you know who you owe a call today
• The funnel works out your own conversion rate at every step
• On the leaderboard, calls count as well as closes
• Weekly reflections start with the week's numbers already filled in