One of the most confusing and infuriating activities of being a new salesperson is how to organize yourself with new potential customers. You may have tried creating stacks by customer type, customer location, target product, or even time of year. If you’re pulling your hair out and surrounded by shredded pieces of paper, try organizing for sales lead burnout.

Keep in mind that you need to consciously cater to these leads that will help you earn money in your sales job. Organizing leads before you start looking for them and keeping them organized after you’ve exhausted them is critical to knowing where you’re at and what needs to happen next.

Rule: You must touch a lead 6 times

1. Call the prospect in the morning. (9:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m.)

2. Call the leader in the afternoon. (13:00 to 17:00)

3. Call the leader at night. (5:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m.)

4. Call the leader on the weekend (9:00 am to 7:00 pm on Saturday and Sunday)

5. Go out and hit the door with the lead.

6. Send the message “I miss you!” card to the leader.

A top salesperson will tap/process a sales lead a minimum of six times before the lead runs out. You make 1 phone call in the morning, another day in the afternoon and another day at night. Do you think your sales job comes to a complete stop at 5:00 pm because that’s when your boss closes for the night? Stop complaining, drink an energy drink and splash some water on your face. Second shift starts at 5:00 pm and runs until 7:00 pm, so be ready and on the phone when your customers can focus on you in the evening.

Now you can try one of the best sales strategies used by people who sell millions of dollars. They sell on Saturdays and Sundays. If you sell B2B, you should know that small business owners live, eat, and breathe in their business 80+ hours per week. Even if the sign on the front door shows closed, knock on the door anyway (hard) and wait 5 minutes to see if someone opens. You can always slip your sales brochures and personal notes to the night watchman/guard to put on someone’s desk. If you sell B2C, your goal is to drive to someone’s house in hopes of catching them there. You might get lucky and find them watering the roses, watching a movie, or reading a novel, but you should give it a go and try to schedule a weekday appointment or make a sale.

Call your potential customers

You will need 12 red, 12 yellow, 12 orange and 12 pink pocket files and a black permanent marker. If you’re selling by location, tag a red pocket file, IE, “Memphis – 38002 New Lead-Call Morning” as the title. On a yellow file, make a label that says “Memphis – 38002 New Lead-Call Afternoon.” In an orange file, “Memphis – 38002 New Lead-Call Evening.” We have a pink file, “Memphis – 38002 New Prospect Call Weekend.” Do you see the pattern? Be sure to keep your sets of cities or postal codes in order one after the other.

go out and knock on the door

If your sales calls are currently not producing, move on to good old-fashioned door knocking method #5. Make a simple manila pocket file and label it “Memphis – 38002 New Lead-Door Knock.” Make sure you have all your notations on each wire up to date. There should be a note online with the date and time of each call made to the leader morning, afternoon, evening, and weekends written on the paper. Now some vendors will label these as morning or afternoon door knocks, so decide if you need that detail. Other than that, try to visit the prospect face to face.

Mail the “I miss you!” card

At your local discount general store, look through the packages of greeting cards until you find the ones that are blank inside. They’re probably about a dollar for 12, so get 60. Make sure you get the ones with colored envelopes so they stick out like a sore thumb in the mail. People open the colored envelopes first and if it looks like an invitation it inspires curiosity.

Your handwritten message should be about saving them money, saving them time, or making them smarter. It should inspire them to contact you urgently. You have to handwrite the address on the envelope. Don’t stick on a pre-printed label.

“Mister._____,

I’ve been trying to contact you. The new Widget 2000 will save you hundreds of dollars every year and I’ve got it for you! Give me a call ASAP so I can put this in your hands so you can reduce production costs!

Greetings,

Your sales person

Telephone number to call at any time”

lead exhausted

Don’t drop that wire! Make yourself a storage box with hanging files by city or zip code. Put an “Out of Stock-Month-Year” tag on the hanging file. Optionally, you can put a “Relive-Month-Year” label on the folder and make a note in your mail calendar to look at them again.