The Difference Between Networking and Prospecting in Sales

One small insight about the differences between networking and prospecting from a sales person's perspective:

Prospecting is looking for people who are ready to purchase your product or service now.  The focus is primarily on the short term and tends to be more selfishly focused on your product rather than the customers needs.  Have you ever seen the sign "no solicitors allowed?"  Or heard of the national "do not call list"?  Those are just some of the things that people do to protect themselves from being bothered by prospecting sales people.

Networking is looking for clusters of people who will likely need your product or service sometime in the future.  Or who can introduce you to others who may need your product or service.  Because they probably don't feel any need for your product or service now, it is counter productive to start the conversation by probing to see if they are ready to buy from you today.  They will likely cut the conversation short. They will also likely set up barriers that make it difficult for you to contact them again in the future.  Also, you run the risk that they will spread a negative report about you to their network that makes it more difficult for you to connect with the members.  When building a network within an affinity group, you need to be unselfish and patient.

It may take several months of service to the members of the network before you begin to see significant results in terms of personal sales. For this reason, especially when you are in transition from primarily prospecting to networking, you probably have to do both.  But in the long run, networking will generate higher sales with more referrals (thus less effort and expense) than relying primarily on prospecting.

Audio Program recommendation:

I have recently been listening to the audio program "Secrets of the Power of Intention" by Dr. Wayne Dyer.  You can purchase a download of the program at www.audible.com.  I will be putting together some affirmations inspired by the program in the near future.  The information that Dr. Dyer presents is first rate.

If you have found this newsletter useful, be sure to send it to at least 5-10 of your friends and associates.  If you think that recorded affirmations will improve your life, you can learn more about how to get the ones I have recorded for myself at http://www.poweraffirmations.com/mp3files.htm. Or just email me.  I have over 200 affirmations recorded on MP3 files for downloading (over 3 hours of audio content).

Together we can make the world a better place one person at a time.