I received an email the other day from an old friend/client who I hadn’t spoken to in over 10 years. He lost his job recently, as have so many others, but he remains upbeat and has formulated a plan for finding a new position, which he has already put into action. Part of his plan includes many of the techniques he learned while sitting in on my prospecting seminars years back.

The reason I mention this is because prospecting skills can be used for so much more than just setting up sales appointments and finding new clients and prospects.

My friend is using it to set up interviews in search of a new job (and he’s getting those interviews). Recent college grads would be wise to learn prospecting skills to enhance their job search in what has become a very tight job market for young people. The days of mailing or emailing resumes and sitting back to wait for the calls to come in are over!!!

To learn the most crucial elements of successful prospecting, join me on August 5th at 1pm for another amazing 2 hour simulcast of Effective Prospecting Skills That Work! You can attend by phone or computer and participate in live Q&A. Do not miss this. Click here to sign up.

Those of you who think prospecting is only for salespeople could stand to learn from Elaine Sadowski.

Elaine Sadowski is the mother of San Francisco Giants pitcher Ryan Sadowski, who won his first two games after being called up from the minor leagues 10 days ago. This is significant because Ryan Sadowski was the longest of long shots to ever make it to the major leagues and he owes a lot of his success to the persistence and prospecting skills of his mother, Elaine.

According to Scott Ostler, a writer for the San Francisco Chronicle, Sadowski, who is 26, was a nice high school pitcher in the Miami area. He was recruited to The University of Florida, where he got his butt Super Glued to the bench. In two seasons, he pitched a total of 6 2/3 innings.

You can guess how much interest he stirred among pro scouts (For those of you who nothing about baseball, the answer is: zero). Sadowski believed he could pitch, but he knew it would be almost impossible to get a sniff. So he asked his mom, a retired elementary school teacher, to phone each of the 30 major league teams, get the name and phone number of the team's Miami-area scout, call each team's scout and say, "I'm Ryan Sadowski's mother. Please phone my son. He can pitch and he'd like a chance to show you."

Not the best message to leave, but if you’ve ever attended one of my prospecting sessions, listened to my audio program or viewed my DVD on prospecting, you know the most important thing is: Make the calls!! And that’s what Elaine Sadowski did.

To the scouts who were nice enough to phone him, Ryan said, "Listen, I'll come to you, I have a catcher. Just give me 10 minutes of your time."

All but two of the scouts told Sadowski they had exactly zero interest in a pitcher who barely pitched in college. But two scouts, including one for the Giants, told Sadowski they remembered him from high school and they'd take a look.

Now two out of thirty might not seem like much, but in Ryan Sadowski’s case he only needed one, or, what he really needed was 29 No’s. He did even better than that; he got two. And once you get your foot in the door, who knows what can happen. Here’s what happened to Sadowski.

Sadowski met the scouts at his old high school field, slapped catcher's gear on his college roommate and threw. He looked pretty good. Word spread. He held another one-man tryout camp and four scouts showed. Then 10. Then 30.

One of the scouts, whom Sadowski describes as "a mysterious man with a mustache" turned out to be Dick Tidrow, the Giants' vice president of player personnel. The Giants drafted Sadowski in the 12th round in 2003. Now here he is, six years later, pitching in the major leagues.

Granted, Ryan Sadowski is talented. But if his mother never makes the calls no one would have ever known of his talent.

As you can see from this story, prospecting is not just for salespeople. It’s a skill that can benefit almost everyone, because you never know when it will come in handy.

With the overwhelming response to my first ever teleseminar on Prospecting combined with many requests for more of the same, I’m pleased to announce that we’re going to do it again!

The next “Prospecting Skills that Work,” teleseminar will take place on June 10^th, 2009 at 6PM Eastern Daylight Time, (5PM Central, 3PM Pacific). If you are interested in getting more appointments, seeing more prospects and increasing your business sign up right now. All you need to take part in this 2 hour session is either a phone, a PDA, a laptop or a desktop.

I believe this could be the most important and critical seminar you will ever attend. In these economic times prospecting is the most important thing you can do, because if you’re not doing it, you could be out of business or out of a job.

Sales executives constantly tell me the biggest reason their salespeople aren’t doing enough business is: they’re not talking to enough people. They’re not making the calls, they’re not getting in the door and in front of prospects and consequently the pipeline is empty and that means no future business.

Selling is rejection, plain and simple. The top salespeople can deal with it, the rest can’t. They don’t see enough people because they fear rejection. They fear rejection because they don’t know how much rejection they need. After this teleseminar is over, you’re going to be able to handle rejection better than at any time in your career.

In this teleseminar, Prospecting Skills That Work, we’re going to cover five important areas of prospecting.

1. Why prospecting and generating consistent every day activity is so important,

2. How to handle rejection by understanding how much rejection you need.

3. How to prepare for and make the prospecting call,

4. How to anticipate, handle and turn around objections,

5. Specific practice techniques guaranteed to make you better.

If you attend this program, use the Action Guide and implement the ideas you learn here’s what will happen:

• You will learn how to control the conversation while anticipating and turning around objections better than ever.
• You will be given a simple, easy-to-use call counting system that will allow you to know your success ratios for every step of the sales process
• This call counting system will teach how to handle rejection better than you ever have, which will enable you to;
  • Make more calls
  • speak to more decision makers
  • sell more appointments, and make more presentations and, the greatest benefit of all
  • Close more sales and make more money

During this 2 hour teleseminar, which you can attend either via phone or webcast you will have the opportunity to ask me any questions related to your prospecting effort. In fact, you’ll have the opportunity to send in questions before and during the event. So sign up now and start giving some thought to what questions you want answered.

Aside from an informative, entertaining and idea packed 2 hours, here’s what else you will receive for your investement:

• A 23 page Action Guide complete with
  • Call counting system
  • An easy-to-follow step by step script development template
  • Turn-arounds you can use for your most common objections, plus many more valuable tips

• A digital recording of the entire session which you can download to your computer and listen to as much and as long as you want.

• A free copy of my online audio program, Supercharged Selling: The Power to be the Best.

So sign up now and join me on June 10^th, 2009 at 6PM EDT for a session that’s guaranteed to jump start your sales effort.

Highlights from Yesterday’s “Lunch Q&A with Warren Greshes.”

Once again, Tuesday’s Lunch Q&A was a successful and, dare I say, profitable event for the people who attended.

To give you an example of the kind of issues we discuss each week, I’ve picked out one of the top questions of the day. It was asked by Pierre from Canada, who wanted to know:

“When I’m making my prospecting calls, when do I let go of a person who keeps saying they’re not interested?”

You must remember a couple of important things.

• Selling is about odds. What are the odds of turning around someone, on the phone, who’s not interested vs. the odds of obtaining an appointment from the next person you call? Most people can tell you a success story about the time they turned around a prospect who kept saying “I’m not interested.” But they seem to forget the hundreds of times they hung up the phone cursing in total frustration.

• If 1 out of every 10 to 15 dials of the phone results in an appointment, why would you ever want to argue with someone who’s saying “Not interested?” Just politely say, “Thank you very much, have a good day,” and move on. All the time you waste arguing with someone who is saying, “No,” is time lost when you could have moved on to the next person and possibly have found a “Yes.” If you realize that each dial of the phone makes you money, it’s important to maximize the amount of dials you make.

• “No” today only means “No” today, not tomorrow, next week or next year.Just because somebody tells you they’re not interested doesn’t mean you can’t call them again. How do you know you didn’t happen to get them on a bad day? Or, maybe in a couple of weeks their situation might change and they’ll be interested in what you have to offer. Besides, do you really think they’re going to remember that you called? I know we all think we’re memorable, but none of us is really that memorable. In fact, I’ll bet that everyone reading this can tell me about numerous clients who originally said “Not interested,” but because of your persistence, they came aboard.

Join us next Tuesday, June 2^nd, at 12:30PM Eastern time and get every question you have answered at our “Tuesday Lunch Q&A with Warren Greshes.” Click here to sign up NOW!

I’m excited to report that my first weekly, “Tuesday Lunch Q&A with Warren Greshes,” was a success! We had a great crowd who submitted some terrific questions. Our next scheduled Lunch Q&A will be May 26th at 12:30pm EDT. You can find the registration link on our schedule page: http://greshes.com/prospecting-seminar .June 3rd and June 10th, we're having full 2 hour Prospecting and Goal-Setting simulcasts.

Here’s one question I found particularly interesting from yesterday's simulcast. It came from the group at Paradis Broadcasting in Alexandria, Minnesota.

Warren, aside from referrals, what’s the best way to find new prospects?

To me, the best way to find warm prospects, after referrals of course, is to join a business organization or club. But do it with some rhyme or reason.

• Figure out the kind of organizations your clients and prospects belong to and go join one of those. In the case of the people from Paradis Broadcasting, they’re selling radio advertising to local businesses, so naturally they should be joining organizations like the local Chamber of Commerce or Rotary Clubs.

• If you sell to specific industry groups, be aware that each industry has their own association. For example I belong to the National Speakers Association. Most of the members are in the speaking and training business, but there are other members who sell products and services to speakers.

• While most of the members work in that industry most industry organizations take in non-industry members. You might have to pay a little higher membership fee but, with the chance to meet hundreds, if not thousands of people who can buy what you sell, who cares about the cost.

• Don’t just pay your dues and sit back waiting for the business to roll in, because it won’t; get involved! You won’t find a lot of hot prospects at the monthly networking sessions.

• The problem is most people join these organizations strictly for what they can get out of it. They pay their dues, then sit back and wait for the business to roll in. When it doesn’t, they complain about “cliques” within the organization where “only certain people benefit.”

• The truth is; those “cliques” usually are the people who do all the work. By the way, that’s why they reap the biggest benefits of membership. Or, as my kids would say, “Duh!”

Here are some tips on how to get into the “Inner Circle” find the hot prospects and get the most out of your membership.

1. Join with more than your wallet. Most organizations are dying for volunteers. The 2^nd thing you want to do, after paying your dues of course, is find out what committee has the greatest need for volunteers. Then get yourself on that committee. Believe me it won’t be hard.

2. Don’t worry about who gets the credit. Most volunteer organization committees are loaded with non-working members. These are people who join just so they can be recognized and receive credit. This creates a real opportunity for those who want to work. Committee chairs would kill for selfless workers. Most committee chairs end up doing the bulk of the work themselves. Even if you’re not made an “official” member of the committee, put your head down, do good work and I guarantee you’ll get noticed.

3. Don’t say “No” when asked to serve. If you’re asked to serve as a Committee Chair or Conference Chair, jump on it. But, what gets you into the “Inner Circle” is not being “Chair,” it’s doing great work as the “Chair.”

You’ll become well known in your organization for the work you do and people will want to know more about you; like what you do for a living. Before you know it, the prospects will be coming to you. Which just goes to prove the old adage: You get what you give.

I hope to see you next week on May 26^th, for our “Tuesday Lunch Q&A with Warren Greshes.” Sign up now!

Has the recession thrown your business for a loop and you don’t know how to handle it? Does your sales force seem confused and paralyzed; not knowing how to proceed in an economic downturn? Are you having trouble overcoming severe price cutting from the competition? Are you losing your motivation and find it hard to maintain a focus, direction or sense of purpose in your life, career or business? What to do?

Let Warren Greshes answer these and many other questions every Tuesday afternoon at 12:30PM Eastern time, starting May 19th as you “Learn at Lunch with Warren Greshes.”

For 30 minutes every Tuesday get ready for some heavy Q & A as Warren takes and answers as many questions about your Business, Career or Life as you can throw at him, for the low introductory price of $19 per session; not much more than the cost of lunch. You can participate via telephone or webinar.

These sessions will be pragmatic, no-holds barred, hard-hitting and honest. So if you can’t take it, don’t show up. But if you’re ready to start fighting back against all the negativity that’s trying to bring you down, act now! Click this link to sign up as we’ll be limiting attendance to 50 participants each Tuesday.