The Golden Nuggets

Let’s get one thing straight right away – not all activity is good activity. 

A dial for the sake of a dial is a dial made in vain. Yet, so many reps will hit vanity metrics to stay out of the doghouse with their manager. But, if those vanity metrics aren’t generating results, that’s when reps will start to feel lost, disengaged and demoralized.

There’s a better way – a way that involves reps executing meaningful activities. But first, reps need to understand the backend work required to make their activities more worthwhile. 

When thinking about worthwhile activities, consider:

• Research
• Connecting research to relevance
• Assessing potential problems
• Crafting a tailored value proposition
• Identifying the right people to target
• Crafting relevant and engaging messaging

Note: If you’re NOT teaching and reinforcing skill development in these areas, you’re putting your reps in a precarious position where their efforts may be misdirected.

This is where a prospecting power hour (or half hour) comes in. 

In this team meeting, reps have the opportunity to practice these worthwhile activities and they benefit from everyone brainstorming and collaborating on how to do it better.

Running the meeting

To facilitate a Prospecting Power Hour, keep it simple:

• Schedule your meeting for 30-45 minutes

• Ask everyone on your team to come in prepared with an account they want to sell to. These can be accounts that they’re already pursuing but are running into roadblocks to generating or progressing pipeline. Or it can be an account they want to start working but aren’t quite sure where to start

• In the meeting, have one person volunteer an account for everyone to review

• Instruct everyone on the team to begin researching the account, looking for relevant events, identifying the best people to target, and crafting a value hypothesis

• Lastly, have your reps begin to craft talk tracks and messaging that the account owner can use to start targeting the company

The benefits of this kind of meeting are well worth the time invested:

• Creativity – reps have the ability to build off of and on top of their teammates’ ideas

• Teamwork – having reps brainstorm together on a common problem can enhance team cohesiveness and encourage reps to help each other more

• Recognition – there’s something really special when a team member has an opportunity to flex a skill that may otherwise go unnoticed, i.e. research. In creating a space where backend skill mastery can be put on display, you’ll cultivate an environment where more appreciation can happen

Let’s not forget about the positive impact this kind of meeting can have on performance though!

Tackle performance problems

One of the main reasons a rep may struggle with a task is because they don’t know how to complete the task OR they are unsure of themselves as they’re doing a task.

The Prospecting Power Hour meeting remedies this. 

As your reps see what it takes to complete backend tasks successfully, they’ll learn new – and better – ways of approaching this work. With this, they’ll have the awareness and know how to be more strategic and more effective with their activities.

But wait…there’s more benefits to be had!

Benefits don’t stop at the reps

In these prospecting power hours, you’ll start to get a feel of where your team is in their prospecting development. 

You might come to realize that a lot of people aren’t researching or finding relevancy points. Or you might see that people are going after the wrong prospects of the organization. This is where you can now amplify your coaching and show your team all together versus just in one-on-ones what great prospecting looks like. 

On the other hand you might see that you have some folks who are really really good with prospecting. If you see that that should be an invitation to have those folks maybe run some teach back sessions to help get the rest of your team up to speed.

Continuing the practice

Regardless of if you have a team of people who are still in the early phases of mastering prospecting skills or if you have absolute prospecting ninjas, a weekly Prospecting Power Hour can make sure that your team is continually practicing on skills they’ll always need for the job. Continue to sharpen that prospecting ax and put a Prospecting Power Hour on the calendar.