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Prospecting is the part of sales most reps would happily outsource, avoid, or procrastinate on if given the chance. And the data backs that up.
In our most recent research, 60% of reps say prospecting is the hardest part of the sales cycle. No wonder pipelines feel harder to build than ever.
But here’s the catch.
Prospecting might be uncomfortable, time-consuming, and frustrating, yet it’s still the single biggest driver of pipeline.
No prospecting means no conversations.
No conversations means no meetings.
No meetings mean no deals.
And no deals means a very awkward forecast meeting.
What makes this even more painful is that most sellers are putting in the time. They’re just spending it in the wrong places.
Our data shows reps spend the majority of their prospecting effort on email, social (hello LinkedIn), and texting because it feels safer and easier. Less rejection. Fewer awkward moments. More boxes checked.
But when you look at the meetings that actually get booked and the deals that actually close, the story flips.
The phone consistently ranks as the most effective channel. Leaders see this gap clearly too. Nearly 40% of sales leaders say they wish their reps would pick up the phone more.
And buyers? They’re not nearly as anti-phone as sellers think.
82% of buyers say they’ve accepted meetings after multiple cold calls, and 74% say they choose the seller who is first to add value.
In other words, prospecting isn’t broken. The way most sellers are taught to do it is.
Prospecting isn’t about grinding longer hours, blasting more messages, or hoping something sticks. It’s about prepping smarter, planning your day, and knowing exactly what to say and why before you ever pick up the phone.
Selling today is loud.
Buyer inboxes are flooded. Spam filters are smarter. LinkedIn DMs are packed with copy-and-paste messages. AI has made it easier than ever to send more outreach, which means buyers are spending more time ignoring it.
At the same time, buyers are busy. Internal meetings. Budget reviews. Tool fatigue. Decision fatigue. Even when interest exists, attention is scarce.
Sellers feel this every day. In our research, reps are not asking for more pressure or more meetings. They want tools that make their job easier and training that helps them say the right thing. Managers feel the strain too. Burnout is real.
So yes, prospecting feels harder than it used to.
But here’s the part that hasn’t changed. You still can’t skip it.
Prospecting is how pipeline starts. It is how conversations begin. It is how deals enter the funnel instead of magically appearing halfway through it. What has changed is that the old spray-and-pray approach does not survive in this environment.
More emails will not fix it.
More automation will not fix it.
And “just try harder” definitely will not fix it.
Modern prospecting requires intention. Knowing who you are calling, why you are calling them, and what you are trying to accomplish in that moment. Not jumping straight to a pitch. Not forcing a meeting ask before you have earned it.
The answer is not more activity. It is better preparation.
Most sellers go into prospecting with one goal in mind. Book the meeting.
On the surface, that makes sense. Meetings lead to opportunities. Opportunities lead to deals. Deals make quota feel slightly less awful.
But this mindset is where prospecting starts to break down.
When sellers treat every call, email, or voicemail like it has to end in a meeting, messages get heavy fast. Value props show up too early. Case studies sneak into voicemails. Discovery questions get asked before a buyer has even agreed to talk. Outreach starts sounding like a pitch instead of an invitation.
It also makes rejection feel personal. When the goal is “get the meeting,” anything short of a yes feels like failure. That wears people down quickly, especially when most prospecting attempts will not convert on the first touch.
Here’s the shift.
The goal of prospecting is not to book the meeting.
The goal is to start the conversation.
You cannot get home if you cannot get on first.
Prospecting works when you break it into smaller, more realistic goals.
Once someone replies, calls you back, or engages, you have earned the right to sell. Not before.
This is why shorter messages work better than longer ones. Why curiosity beats credibility early. And why sellers who focus on engagement instead of pitching consistently build more pipeline with less effort.
Prospecting is not about forcing an outcome. It is about opening the door.
This is where a lot of sellers lose momentum before they ever get started.
Early outreach is not the place to pitch. It is not the place for your value prop, your customer logos, your case studies, or your discovery questions. When sellers try to sell too early, buyers do exactly what you would do. They scan, decide “no,” and move on.
The purpose of early outreach is simple.
Get noticed. Get a response. Start a conversation.
That is it.
When sellers treat prospecting like a mini sales presentation, messages get long, tone gets salesy, and response rates drop fast. Shorter, lighter, more human outreach consistently works better because it respects the buyer’s time and attention.
Think engagement first. Selling comes later.
One of the biggest prospecting myths is that more preparation always equals better results. In reality, over-preparing often slows sellers down and keeps them stuck in research mode instead of having real conversations.
Speed matters in prospecting.
Shorter messages are easier to listen to, read, and respond to. Buyers are far more likely to engage with something that feels quick and low effort than something that feels like homework.
This applies across every channel:
Your job is not to explain everything. Your job is to earn the next step.
Despite how uncomfortable it feels, the phone continues to outperform every other channel when it comes to booking meetings and closing deals.
That does not mean email, LinkedIn, or text are useless. They matter. They support the phone. They reinforce familiarity. They help warm things up.
But they work best when they are part of a plan, not the plan.
The strongest prospecting strategies use multiple channels together, with the phone leading the way and digital channels supporting it.
Good prospecting starts before the first dial. The goal is not to research everything. It is to prepare just enough so you can move quickly and stay consistent.
Timing matters more than most sellers think. You don’t need to guess or test endlessly. Patterns are pretty consistent.
Calling at the right time doesn’t guarantee a conversation, but calling at the wrong time almost guarantees you won’t get one.
That is it.
You do not need pricing.
You do not need a case study.
You do not need their full job history.
Less is more.
DOWNLOAD: How to Plan for Prospecting
Prospecting gets dramatically easier when you stop treating every lead like a brand-new project.
Common ways to group leads include:
Grouping leads allows you to stay focused, consistent, and fast.
You do not need to reinvent your prep for every single person.
Group your research around:
What should be personalized every time is the rapport builder. Everything else can be reused and refined.
READ: What Is the SWIIFT℠ Selling Methodology?
Future you will thank present you for taking better notes.
Capture:
This keeps follow-up clean, relevant, and efficient.
If you are calling and not leaving voicemails, you are doing extra work for nothing.
Voicemails are touches. Touches create familiarity. Familiarity drives responses.
The most effective voicemails typically fall into one of these categories:
You do not need to explain everything. You just need to give them a reason to call you back.
When a buyer answers, the goal does not change.
Do not pitch. Engage them.
WATCH: Why You Need To Stop Pitching & Lead With Value Instead
The strongest conversations follow a simple flow:
Selling happens after the response, not before it.
Prospecting feels hard because most sellers were never taught how to do it well. They were taught to grind, push through rejection, and figure it out on their own.
There is a better way.
Prospecting works when sellers prep smarter, plan their day, and focus on conversations instead of outcomes. When done right, it takes less time, creates better engagement, and builds healthier pipeline.
Prospecting is not broken.
It just needs to be done differently.
And when it is, everything downstream gets easier.
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Lauren Bailey, known to many as “LB”, is a sales leader, enablement leader, and entrepreneur and founder of 3 successful brands: Factor 8, providing front-line job training for inside sellers and managers, The Sales Bar, a subscription-based virtual sales training platform, and #GirlsClub, a community and development program helping more women earn leadership positions in sales.
My mission is to walk alongside sales professionals as they develop the skills and best practices needed to find sales success. Our purpose is to show salespeople their true worth as the tip of the spear. I have the pleasure of hosting the best minds in sales every day and creating content that elevates the sales profession.
Connect with me @saywhatsales on Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter. Join us live daily to learn and grow into a top-performing sales professional.
Jacqueline Gill is a Senior Manager in Sales Enablement who’s been at TTEC for 12 years—which in BPO years is basically a lifetime. While her official job is enabling sales, she’s also been known to jump into learning services sales conversations once the executive sellers work their magic. Think of her as the closer with a curriculum. Outside of work, she’s a proud mom of four and a firm believer that AI can help with just about anything—except maybe laundry.
Forty-seven years’ experience managing teams and processes across two primary industries, Retail Department stores and Environmental Solutions/Logistics. The last eleven years have been invested with the Inside Sales Teams at WM, including managing retention and acquisition teams, then progressing to exploring, sourcing, procuring and implementing 3rd party tools and solutions to significantly improve both our customer’s and Sales Team’s experiences.
David Kreiger is the founder of SalesRoads, a leading sales outsourcing firm with over 17 years of experience helping businesses drive revenue growth by building winning sales teams. A seasoned entrepreneur and host of the “Sell Like A Leader” podcast, David champions a philosophy that sales success hinges on talent development and a people-first mindset.
