On this episode, Paul discusses the importance of timing in prospecting.
Show Notes
“The best time to prospect is….”
The two best days of the week to prospect are and .
Send an antifreeze message to take the chill off your cold call.
“The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The next best time is now.” (Chinese proverb)
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What is the best time to prospect?
(Transcribed from podcast)
Today’s show: We’ve got a question coming in from Kelvin. Kelvin wanted to know about prospecting. In fact, he asked two questions. He wanted to know, “What are some of my best prospecting tips?” And also, he wanted to know, “What is the best time to prospect?” So, we’re going to answer both of those questions, however, on two separate shows. The question we’re going to focus on today is, “What is the best time to prospect?” We know that timing is not everything but helpful in sales. We know that the right timing can be critical to us being successful, getting the customer to call us back. Whatever it might be, timing does matter, so we’re going to talk about that on today’s show.
Before we do that, though, a quick shout-out to Andrea over at The Creative Impostor Studios. If you’re thinking of starting a podcast, if you have an idea for a podcast, Andrea is here to help. When it comes to designing a show, when it comes to producing it, editing it, all that good stuff, Andrea is your go-to person. So, reach out to The Creative Impostor Studios. She has a great podcast too, by the way. Make sure you visit her website. We’re going to have a link to her website on this episode’s webpage. So, check it out.
Also pick up your copy of Value-Added Selling on Amazon or wherever you get your books. We have a whole section based on prospecting and some of the tips I’m going to share with you are actually in the book. So, make sure you pick up your copy. It’s available wherever you get your books: Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Chapters. You name it, you can find it.
Back to that question. What is the best time to prospect? Well, there’s an old Chinese proverb that says, the best time to plant a tree is actually twenty years ago. The second best time to build [plant] one is right now. So, first things first. Before we get into the right timing of prospecting, just make sure you’re prospecting. The worst thing we can do is wait for the ideal time to prospect and we spend most of our time waiting versus actually picking up the phone, reaching out to prospects. I’m going to go ahead and say the best time to prospect is right now. No matter what, the best time to prospect is right now. Use that as your starting point. Choose not to wait. Prospecting is something we need to do all the time.
With that being said, though, I do want to offer a little bit of data. If you’re prospecting all the time, there are some critical times that you have a better chance of success when reaching out to the customer. And when I’m talking about reaching out, I’m talking about reaching out via a phone call. So, what I’m going to share with you, this is research that actually came from Call Hippo, so you can check it out. We’ll have a link to the research on the transcription here on the actual webpage for this episode, so you can check it out, read more about it.
But thousands of samples across multiple industries, here’s what Call Hippo found. They found that the absolute best day to reach out to a customer via phone is Wednesday. Wednesday is, by far, the best day of the week to prospect using your phone. Now, just because you use your phone on Wednesday to prospect, it doesn’t mean you can’t initiate prospecting activity on Monday or Friday. Monday was the second worst day; Friday was the worst, which actually surprised me. I mean, I can think of several examples throughout my career, even currently, where I’ve had great luck prospecting on Friday afternoons. Anyway, that’s what Call Hippo says. They said Wednesday is the best day. The second best day to reach out via phone is going to be on Thursday.
So, if about think about this—Wednesday and Thursday—make those your days where you’re dialing for dollars. Those are the days you’re going to schedule most of your prospecting activity via phone: Wednesday and Thursday. Now, Call Hippo also found that the best time of day to reach out to a prospect is between 3:30 and 5:00 PM. 3:30 and 5:00—that increases the likelihood that they’re going to answer. Now, when we say that’s the best time to prospect, it doesn’t mean that they’re more likely to buy at that time, it just means that they’re more likely to answer or pick up the phone at that time. The second best time is between 11:00 and 12:00.
So, good rule of thumb. Your absolute best prospects—your most viable prospects—focus on reaching out to them via phone on Wednesday and Thursdays between three 3:30 and 5:00 PM and 11:00 [AM] and 12:00 PM. That’s the phone aspect of prospecting.
Now you’ve got to realize that you can do other things before you make that phone call to increase the likelihood that your buyer’s actually going to pick up. And what I’m talking about here is actually warming up the call. So, if you’re going to make Wednesday and Thursday the days of the week where you’re dialing for dollars, that means on Monday, Tuesday, and Friday, you need to warm up your calls. You need to send your customers and prospects an antifreeze message. An antifreeze message is exactly what it sounds like. It takes the chill off of the cold call that you’re going to make on Wednesday and Thursday.
Now, you can do this in several different ways. An antifreeze message can be a letter that you actually mail to a prospect. And it’s a letter that will grab their attention, that’s going to establish the need for what you do and how your company can help them. And also, it just familiarizes the buyer with your name and with your company name. A buyer is more likely to pick up the phone if they recognize your name and your company name.
So, you can send them a letter. Send them a letter on your company letterhead. In your message, again, you want to highlight the need for what you do, maybe a problem that you could potentially solve. And you also want to let them know you’re going to reach out to them later this week. You can even put a date if you would like—what day you’re going to be reaching out to them.
So, you can do that with a letter. You can take that same message and you can put it in an email. You can take that same message you can put it in a LinkedIn request. You can even take that same message and call the gatekeeper and share the information with them for them to pass along to the decision-maker that you’re going to be reaching out to. Whatever you do, you just want to make sure that you’re warming up that call before you initiate your phone campaign on Wednesdays and Thursdays.
Folks, that’s the show for today. Again, when you’re looking at prospecting, the best time to do it was yesterday. Second best time? Hey, do it now. Pick up that phone, reach out. You’re going to increase the likelihood of the buyer answering on a Wednesday and a Thursday, so you can make those your pick days to put your phone work in. The other days, make sure you’re, warming up the message by sending out antifreeze messages, either LinkedIn, email, you can even send them a letter. The key is to warm up that call so they increase the likelihood of them actually answering.
Make it a big day.
