The 4-Week Prospecting Challenge

FOXBOUND PLAYBOOK

Motivation gets you started; habit keeps you going. Turn your 2020 energy into long-term momentum with FoxBound’s 4-Week Prospecting Challenge!

Run This Play To:

Build prospecting consistency and, increase social selling effectiveness, and generate qualified pipeline.

# OF PEOPLE

1-Whole Team

PREP TIME

Undefined

TIME

4 Weeks

DIFFICULTY

Moderate

DOWNLOAD HERE

Get It

Why Run This Play?

Whatever your 2020 goals are, you need more qualified pipeline to make it happen!

Run this play to keep yourself organized and accountable as you jumpstart your prospecting efforts. Since sales teams are the professional athletes of the business world, this challenge was build to mirror the best practices of successful fitness programs.

MATERIALS NEEDED

List of Target Prospects / Companies
LinkedIn or Sales Navigator Account
Business Email Account
Recommended: Sales Engagement Platform
Recommended: List-Building & Data Tools
Hustle!

OVERVIEW

4 Weeks at a Glance

Here’s a look at the big picture. For each week, we’ll break down the length, action items, and recommended audience for each session.

Breaking Down the Numbers

The maximum amount of time proposed by this is ~6.5 hours per week. While you can fluctuate this up or down based on workload, remember that this is barely 15% of a 45-hour sales workweek.

At a minimum, this program calls for ~100-150 personalized outbound emails per week.
When this combines with follow-up emails, you’ll likely be delivering 200-400 total emails per week (as long as new prospects are added as backfilled)
Assuming even just a 2.5% conversion rate to a meeting, you should be yielding at least 8 meetings per month
Assuming you’ve properly segmented accounts and prospects to increase probability of a favorable win rate, deal size, and sales cycle length, this should yield the pipeline you need to close your number

Hacking Human Psychology with 5 Factors

Let’s be real, there’s more fun things you can do than prospecting.

This program takes a variety of key psychological elements into mind to help you get the most out of your prospecting efforts.

Brainstorming: Strategy and process are much easier to optimize when discussed as a group.
*Accountability: With a teammate or direct manager to hold you accountable, you’re much more likely to exceed goals. You’ve likely heard the saying, “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.”
Completion: Crossing action items off of a to do list with a pen or pencil activates pleasure centers in the brain. In turn, this gives you a sense of achievement and helps maintain momentum.
Competition: Competing with yourself is one thing. Competing with teammates can help you override procrastination and execute more.
Time-Blocking: This program doesn’t just recommend the activities you should perform. It also prescribes a recommended amount of time to do it. This is proven to increase productivity since, “work expands or contracts to fit the allotted time.”

*While not required, we recommend teaming up with your colleagues and/or a direct manager can make or break your success.

Assumptions

Important: This program does not start from scratch.

If you need guidance on strategy, tooling, or tactics before diving in, here are some recommended resources:

The 2020 Lead Generation Buyer’s Guide
How to (Actually) Personalize Emails at Scale
How to Build a Target Account List Using Sales Navigator
4 Signs It’s Time to Adopt Sales Engagement
7 Helpful Tips for Prospecting on LinkedIn
(If you need Sales Engagement & Lead-Generation) Sign up for a FoxBound trial account here

Assuming you have the required materials, let’s start!

SESSIONS

For each week, you’ll be recommended to work through a set of meetings. Some of these are with your accountability partner / teammates, but most are for you to have time with yourself to get the work done.

Especially during prime selling hours, protect your calendar!

Set each of these meetings as “recurring” so you automatically have at least 5 hours scheduled to build pipeline. Treat them like internal meetings and don’t move them unless absolutely needed.

1) Accountability Kick-Off & Check-In Sessions

To kick off your program, first team up with your accountability partner.

Expected Duration: 30 minutes
Attendees: You, accountability partner
Action Items:

Fill out the Prospecting Program Sheet or write down answers to these questions
- What is your pipeline generation goal?
- Who is holding you accountable?
- Did you meet or exceed your goal? (Save for later)
Measure:
- Current total pipeline ($ amount)
- Current total pipeline (# of opportunities)
- Qualified pipeline ($ amount)
- Qualified pipeline (# of opportunities)
Discuss & Plan
- Prospecting strategy & messaging
- Targeted output (activities)
- Targeted results (results)

DOWNLOAD

Get the 2020 Prospecting Program Sheet

2) Planning Sessions

Planning and execution do not directly mix. However, planning ahead of time makes execution much quicker and more effective! Before your heavier Execution Sessions, you’ll be asked to map out your plan of attack in advance.

Expected Duration: 30-60 minutes
Attendees: Just yourself
Action Items:

Build a targeted lists of accounts & prospects
Do any required research
Review & finalize sales campaigns and messaging

3) Execution Sessions

This is where the real work happens. Calls, emails, InMails, etc – this should be executed in focused time blocks. Minimize distractions by booking a separate room, closing all non-essential tabs, and by doing research ahead of time.

Expected Duration: 60-120 minutes (split these up if needed)
Attendees: You
Action Items:

Enroll AT LEAST 25-50 new contacts in a Pursuit
Call engaged contacts
Personally connect with all on LinkedIn

Start a Trial of FoxBound's Sales Acceleration Stack

4) Social Selling

Social Selling is not likely to get you to your number on its own. However, it’s worth spending time on in a defined time-slot so you can maintain visibility and build credibility with prospects and clients.

Expected Duration: 30-60 minutes
Attendees: You
Action Items:

Post your company’s content along with insight
Share 2-3 posts from key prospects/customers
InMail key prospects based on triggers

5) Accountability Wrap-Up

At the end of your 4-week program, be sure to spend time with your accountability partner to debrief on results and areas of improvement.

Expected Duration: 30-60 minutes
Attendees: You
Action Items:

Measure:
- Compare current total pipeline ($ amount) to initial number
- Compare current total pipeline (# of opportunities) to initial number
- Compare qualified pipeline ($ amount) to initial number
- Compare qualified pipeline (# of opportunities) to initial number
Discuss & Review
- Prospecting strategy & messaging effectives
- Were targeted output (activity) goals met?
- Were targeted results (results) goals met?

6) Recommended Reading (Optional)

Hands-on sales experience is a great teacher but it’s important to gather perspectives from today’s leading business minds. Here’s a few of our favorites:

Extreme Ownership by Leif Babin & Jocko Willink
Fanatical Prospecting by Jeb Blount
The Lost Art of Closing by Anthony Iannorino

WEEK ONE

WEEK TWO

WEEK THREE

WEEK FOUR

CONCLUSION

Congratulations!

By the end of the program, our hope for you is that you’ve built consistent prospecting habits, increased effectiveness, and generated plenty of qualified pipeline!

We’d love to hear how this impacted your routine and sales forecast. Feel free to drop us a note at [email protected] or let us know through live chat.

Stay In The Loop

Subscribe to receive tips to help you sharpen sales messaging! And if you ever need the tools & technology to help you get the job done, start with FoxBound.

Subscribe Now

Start Free

FOXBOUND PLAYBOOK