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Three weeks ago it warmed up here in Augusta, Georgia, so I played hooky from work to take advantage of the nice weather and play a round of golf. While I was waiting for the group in front of me to clear the green my phone rang. I answered but I couldn’t hear anything on the other end so I hung up.
Ten minutes later it rang again with a call from the same number. This time, however, I was walking up to a birdie putt, so I sent the call to voicemail.
After finishing my round, I looked at my voice messages to see who had called, but there was no message so I didn’t give it another thought.
Later that day, I found an email from the rep asking for a meeting. He said he had called but we'd been disconnected.
It was at that moment that I realized I had my earbuds in when I answered the phone the first time. Sometimes calls do not automatically transfer to them. That is why I couldn’t hear him when I picked up the phone.
I considered responding to his email at that moment, but it was dinner time, and I was getting ready to grill some steaks. So, I put his note aside for later. The next morning, life happened, priorities got in the way, and I completely forgot about it. I haven’t heard from him since.
After three attempts (and no voice message) he gave up. The sad thing is, because of my guilt about hanging up on him, had he made one more call or email, I would have responded.
Other than not prospecting altogether, giving up too soon is the primary reason salespeople are failing at prospecting on an epic scale.
92% of Prospectors Give Up After Only 4 Attempts
Once after another attempt at creating a viable light bulb went down in flames, inventor Thomas Edison said that he hadn’t failed. He’d just found 10,000 ways that didn’t work. Because of his relentless persistence, he changed the world.
Now juxtapose this against the statistics on sales prospecting persistence:
44% of salespeople make only one prospecting attempt before giving up.
78% make only two prospecting attempts before giving up.
92% never make more than four prospecting attempts.
94% of these attempts are lame, poorly written emails.
Deeper into the weeds, the data tells us that it takes many prospecting touches to compel prospects to engage.
4 touches to engage a hot inbound lead.
5 touches to engage a prospect in a buying window who is familiar with you and your brand.
7 touches to engage an inactive customer or previously closed/lost deal.
9 touches to engage a warm inbound lead.
11 touches to engage a prospect in the buying window with no familiarity with you or your brand.
13 touches to engage a prospect with some familiarity with you or your brand but not in a buying window.
20+ touches to engage a cold prospect who is not familiar with you or your brand.
Keep in mind that these are averages across a wide statistical distribution. Depending on your brand recognition, geographic location, prospecting channel, product, service, sales cycle, industry vertical, and the role (CEO, Director, Manager) you might find that these numbers shift.
The point, however, is not the numbers. It is the story these numbers tell us. In most cases, it takes around 8 touches to get meaningful engagement from a prospect. But 92% of salespeople give up after no more than four attempts.
It’s no wonder that pipelines are bone dry and last year, according to recent data, 91% of sales teams failed to achieve quota.
Emotional Hangups in Prospecting
When I tell stories of prospecting persistence from the stage during keynotes and training sessions—for instance, the rep who contacted me 71 times before finally convincing me to buy from him—people in the audience visually squirm.
Invariably, when I tell the true story of the time I left a voicemail for a prospective client every day for 52 days in a row before he called me back leading to a $1.2 million deal and punching my ticket to Presidents Club, there is an audible gasp of disbelief.
This type of raw prospecting persistence carries negative connotations. People will come up to me and say things like:
“I could never do that!”
“I’d be pissed if anyone called me that many times.”
“If someone did that to me, I’d block them.”
Sometimes they attack me with:
“Anyone who would call that many times is an awful person.”
“I don’t care what you were selling or how badly I needed it, I would never buy from you!”
“That’s horrible; it’s stalking!”
I want to be clear that I am not suggesting that salespeople should engage in gratuitous stalking. That makes no sense and will not earn you meaningful engagement.
Professional, intentional, systematic, multi-touch prospecting, is not stalking.
Projecting is the Enemy of Persistence
Although nearly every sales professional worth their salt understands the power of persistence in prospecting, most struggle to be persistent prospectors.
For most salespeople, the level of persistence required to grab the attention of modern buyers can feel like you’re being pushy—crossing the line, bothering, and annoying people.
This wave of emotional hang-ups in the form of projecting is why most salespeople give up too soon.
Projecting, in a psychological context, is the act of attributing your own emotions, feelings, assumptions, experiences, or biases to your prospect. It causes you to decide what they are feeling through the lens of your own emotions rather than theirs.
Think about the rep who called me while I was on the golf course. If, in his mind’s eye, he pictured me angry at him because I hung up, he might feel that a fourth or fifth touch was “too pushy” or “annoying me,” even though those feelings couldn’t be further from the truth.
I might have found what he was selling interesting, but we’ll never know now.
Or, if you feel anxious about interrupting people with a phone call, you might project that anxiety onto your prospect, assuming it makes them uncomfortable. However, your prospect may not feel that way at all—especially if they are in a buying window and receptive to talking with you.
Projecting Allows for an Easy Excuse to Give Up
Projecting, which is all too common for salespeople, costs you dearly and holds you back from being persistent.
When you project your feelings of annoyance or frustration about being interrupted onto prospects, it can cause you to give up prematurely.
When you project your fear of rejection onto prospects, it can cause you to interpret a lack of immediate response or a vague objection as a definitive “no.”
Projecting can also cause you to stick to a single communication channel like email, believing that it is less intrusive and aligns with how the prospect wants to be contacted. When the prospect doesn’t respond, you quit rather than reach out through different channels.
Projecting your own discomfort with prospecting persistence causes you to rationalize that your prospect doesn’t want to be contacted. This becomes an easy excuse not to prospect or to give up after one or two touches.
Emotional Detachment
Breaking through the challenge of projecting when prospecting and truly embracing persistence is not easy. You know as well as anyone else that detaching from emotional hang-ups is easier said than done. But emotional detachment is exactly what has to be done in order to free yourself from what is holding you back.
When it comes to the persistence of prospecting—where rejection and non-responsiveness are common—emotional detachment is a crucial meta-skill.
Detachment doesn’t mean being cold or indifferent. It means not allowing your own personal emotions to cause you to decide what your prospect feels. When you learn to detach, you are less likely to take rejection personally, you’ll bounce back more quickly, and you’ll find the persistence required to win.
Resistance Does Not Equal Rejection
Detachment begins with internalizing that your prospect’s initial resistance does not equate to outright rejection. We all resist new things and change.
Resistance is a natural response to your outreach. Especially when people are not yet familiar with you, your brand, or your product, service, or software. It is just human nature.
Persistence is often required to move beyond this initial familiarity barrier. This helps compel your prospect to engage in a meaningful conversation and build a deeper connection. This is why making multiple prospecting touches is a normal part of the prospecting and familiarity journey.
Instead of viewing a lack of response, a rejection, or an unexpected outcome as a personal failure, try reframing these moments. Recognize that each step, whether positive or negative, contributes to your growth and eventual success and is a part of the process. This helps you avoid getting caught up in the negative emotions that cause you to give up too early.
It is easier to detach from your emotions when you view each persistent prospecting touch as a natural step toward meaningful engagement. Instead of focusing solely on the success or failure of any given touch, shift your perspective to see the bigger picture of building relationships over time.
Shift your mindset from equating persistence with being pushy and resistance with rejection. Then you step into a prospecting framework that values consistency, patience, and a focus on persistently playing the long game.
Edison once said that “Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time.” So when you are tired, worn out, and you feel like you can’t take anymore rejection, always will yourself to make one more call!
Learn how to convert more prospecting calls into appointments with our FREE Guide 25 Ways to Ask for the Appointment on a Cold Call