#054: 3 prospecting mistakes and how to fix them

Read time: 5 minutes

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Prospecting can be a grind, but many sales reps unknowingly make the same mistakes that keep them from booking more meetings. Let’s look at three common mistakes and how to fix them.

1. Your Messaging is All About You

It’s easy to focus on your company’s products. It’s likely what you know best and what you’ve been trained on. The problem is, that customers don’t care about your product features or how great your service is. Prospects care more about how you can solve their specific problems. If your emails and messages start with “We do X, Y, Z,” chances are your prospects are hitting delete before they get to the second line. If your email has more “I” and “We” language than “You” language, you’re talking too much about yourself.

The Fix: Make It About Them
Effective messaging speaks directly to your prospect’s pain points and goals. Shift the focus away from you and onto how you can help them solve a problem. Turn your features into problems by asking, what problem is my customer facing that would need them to use my product or service? The more you tailor your message to what matters to them, the more likely they are to engage. Then use the 4P Email Framework to write your message.

Here are the 5 messaging pitfalls many reps are guilty of

• Just the facts - only sharing data and information with no focus on problems or negative impact

• Focused on your offering - All about you (see above)

• No differentiation - You could replace your company name with your competitor and you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference.

• Too broad - Try and share every use case or application in the same email

• No personalization - Send the same template to everyone

2. You’re Not Using Multiple Channels

If you’re only using ONE channel for messaging, you’re leaving opportunities on the table. Some prospects prefer emails, but others may never open them. People have their own ways they like to communicate. You have to try different channels to figure out what works for that person. Sticking to just one method limits your chances of breaking through. Whether it’s LinkedIn, phone calls, or even attending industry events, prospects engage differently depending on where they’re most active.

The Fix: Diversify Your Outreach Channels
Leverage a multi-channel approach by incorporating email, LinkedIn, Twitter (X), phone calls, direct mail, in-person, and events into your outreach strategy. For instance, start with a LinkedIn connection, follow up with a personalized email, and then leave a voicemail. By showing up in different places, you increase your visibility and make it harder for prospects to ignore you. Multi-channel outreach is especially important when you’re targeting hard-to-reach decision-makers who are extremely busy.

Fun fact: By leaving a voicemail, you increase your EMAIL response rates by 2X. You create familiarity with your name and by referencing and email sent, are able to more than double your reply rates. See the chart below from Gong. From my own personal experience, we ran the same test at Synthego and saw almost identical results.

3. You’re Wasting Time on Manual Tasks That Can Be Automated

Manually building lists and personalizing every message is incredibly time-consuming. Scrolling through LinkedIn to find prospects and researching their background takes time—time that could be better spent on actual selling. Plus, without tools to assist, your personalization might still be lacking despite your efforts. You should still be doing manual efforts for your top tier prospects but you don’t need to treat the bench scientist with the same level of effort as you would a VP (when it comes to prospecting).

The Fix: Automate List Building and Personalization
Some great tools for list building make the process 10x faster. Add on AI-powered tools that automate a lot of the manual research. These tools can help you quickly build targeted lists, automate email sequences, and personalize messages at scale. Imagine how much more efficient your prospecting could be if you didn’t spend hours manually building lists or crafting individual emails. Automation frees up your time so you can focus on what really matters: engaging with prospects, building deep relationships, and closing deals.

Uplevel Your Prospecting Skills

These common prospecting challenges are all solvable with the right strategies and tools. The key is knowing how to make the shift from outdated methods to smarter, more efficient prospecting.

We’ve put together everything you need to turn prospecting from a weakness to a strength.

Our Prospecting Mastery Accelerator is a 4-week (1 session/week) program where we’ll show you step-by-step how to:

• Write messaging that resonates with your prospects and gets replies

• Leverage a multi-channel approach to maximize your outreach

• Use AI and tools to target the right prospects at the right time

• And a whole lot more…

You might be thinking, "I don’t have time for this," but if you’re struggling to prospect effectively now, how much more time are you wasting on efforts that don’t convert? With just a few hours a week, we’ll give you strategies that save you time in the long run and fill your pipeline with quality opportunities.

Worried about the cost? Ask your manager if you can expense it. Many sales teams invest in training like this because they know it delivers results. What’s just one extra meeting with a high-value prospect worth towards your quarterly number?

By the end of the program, you’ll be equipped with all the strategies, templates, and resources you need to fill your pipeline with high-quality leads. The accelerator starts on October 7th! 

If you're ready to stop banging your head against a wall and start booking more meetings, sign up now and secure your spot!

Apple Podcast | Spotify | YouTube

Episode 44: [Leadership] How to build sales teams and become a leader with Tom Conklin

• Securing meetings should be the main focus

• How founder mode applies to sales leadership

• Use your intrinsic motivation to be successful

• Searching for resilience in sales hiring

• Building a sales rep profile working backwards from your customer

1. Lead Generation: We’ll build target lists, write scientifically relevant messaging, and send messages on your behalf to book qualified sales meetings with biotech and pharma companies.

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