Professional sales prospecting is all about generating leads, business development, and putting potential customers into your sales pipeline.  Most everyone agrees that it is critical to sales growth and business sustainability, yet many fear the idea due to a personal insecurity with meeting new people, a fear of rejection, and possibly a fear of success.  Whatever the fear may be, it is very prevalent in many of us, and prevents many people from ever achieving their business goals, objectives, and dreams.

Many believe that a major ingredient to success is "To follow your heart, do what you love and the money will follow."  As much as I believe in passion and doing what you love as key ingredients to business success, the fact remains that if one does not prospect for business, and or continue to prospect with purpose over time, the chances of business success, and or business growth will remain minimal at best!

We all would love to be able to just do what we love... I personally love coaching, and assisting home-based entrepreneur's to reach their goals!  However, without my consistent sales-prospecting, focusing on a simple sales strategy, I would not be writing my 23^rd e-newsletter to you today.  

The fear of sales-prospecting is very real and for many entrepreneurs it prevents them from ever achieving their personal and professional dreams.  I sum up sales-prospecting as simply getting in front of, and then staying in front of, your target market with a value-driven message.  (My message for you to digest and ideally forward to someone in need, is that) in order for you to follow your heart and do what you love, and then make enough profit so that the money will follow... you need to consistently position oneself in front of, and then stay in front of, your target market!

Fear comes from uncertainty.  Many people are unsure of where to start.  Set a goal this January to begin determining a specific target market with which you want to work (age, gender, geography, socio-economic grouping and or combination).  Once you make a decision and isolate a specific group of people to whom you can relate and begin to establish some rapport with, you then need to determine where they live, play, hang-out.  Then you will ultimately create a relationship with them.  Such personal planning and research will help you save time and should provide you with more confidence, and focus, in your sales strategies, allowing you more time to truly do what you love.   I have three ideas below to help you overcome your sales-prospecting fears and get started with a new beginning into 2011:

I.                    Join Toastmasters and attend weekly for a year!  Communicating in business, as in life, is not optional.  By practicing speaking in front of a small audience, consistently, you grow your self-confidence, self-esteem, and self-belief.  Seeking out new business, and then establishing rapport is so much easier when you are more calm, cool, and confident in front of an audience.   Toastmasters.org can help you do this.

II.                  Find a mentor and ask for help.   Success breeds success.  Most successful entrepreneurs and business people had guidance and direction from successors that came before them.  Reach out for some help this year and ask a colleague, and or friend, to share some secrets of success that got them started.  I bet many successful business people will agree that it is not what you know, as much as it is who knows you in your business!  Don't fly solo... Ask for help sooner rather than later! 

III.                Hire a specialized business coach.  Make a good business decision this year and work with a passionate professional who has the ability to listen and then assist you on your journey to success, however you define it.  My own personal experience with a business coach was enlightening as it shed light where there was darkness, and then also brought an objective voice to my business, that helped me gain perspective where I needed it most. 

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