Prospecting Is Not Urgent Until It Is

Episode 70 is here.

Mark McGraw and Josh Pitchford are back together, and the topic is the one that comes up first in almost every conversation they have with a sales team.

Prospecting.

Josh hears it constantly: “We need to be more consistent. We need to be better in our prospecting.” He calls it the number one constraint.

This episode is about how to get yourself to do it. Or, if you’re a sales manager, how to get your team to do it. Not once. Consistently.

The Line That Explains Everything

Josh has a line Mark credits him for every time he uses it:

“Prospecting is not urgent until it is.”

Here’s what he means. Sellers can come up with everything under the sun to do instead of prospecting. Then one day they look at the pipeline, see how thin it is, and have what Josh calls the “oh sugar plums” moment. Mark’s version starts with the same letter and is a little saltier.

Suddenly prospecting is urgent everywhere.

Mark put it on the Eisenhower matrix. Prospecting lives in the important-but-not-urgent box. Until it doesn’t.

The point of this episode is to never get to that moment. To feed the top of the pipeline so steadily that urgency never shows up.

Phone Camp: What One Client Does Every Quarter

Josh has a client that runs a quarterly cold call event. One or two full days. Everybody on the phones.

Here’s how it’s structured, and how you can replicate it.

Training first. Before anyone dials, Josh runs a short session on how to structure the call and what questions and objections to be ready for.

Then they pair up. Two sellers, back and forth. One makes the call, the other listens in. Not everyone gets an answer, but when someone does, there’s a quick debrief: What did we learn? What should we have been ready for? What did the person on the call miss because they were emotionally in the moment?

Josh’s rule for team sessions: “Don’t be on the phone at the same time. You want to listen and learn.”

Mark’s take on why that matters: prospecting is probably 80 percent tonality and 20 percent words. When one person is doing it well, that tonality transfers across the room.

Then the crescendo. A 15 to 30 minute debrief at the end. Dials, conversations, appointments, person by person and as a team.

And this is the part most teams skip. Celebrate the process, not just the results.

Josh: “Let’s celebrate the fact that we just pounded out 600 dials. We had a hundred conversations and we booked 20 new meetings. If your team was booking 20 new meetings in a day, what would your pipeline look like?”

Mark asked what each rep typically books out of a day like that.

Two to three appointments per rep. Over about six blocks.

You Don’t Need a Conference Room

This client flies everyone in. That’s a real investment.

You don’t have to.

Josh’s version for everyone else: pull up a Zoom room. Everyone on their own cell phone, making their own dials, comparing notes between calls.

Mark’s version for individuals: get a buddy. Set the time. Do the work together.

Josh compared it to a workout partner. “The personal training industry exists because somebody else is showing up with you.” Company is motivation.

Sitting alone with a list of 25 names is hard. Doing it next to someone makes it a team thing, and team things get executed.

Reduce the Friction

Mark described the inefficient version most people run.

Who should I call? Let me pull up the name. Let me look them up on LinkedIn. Let me find the number. Make one call. Start the whole thing over.

That’s not a prospecting block. That’s getting ready to get ready.

Josh: “Salespeople are wonderful at coming up with other things to do.”

The prep happens before the block. The list, the numbers, the notes, the bonding detail about the same college. All of it ready at your fingertips when the clock starts.

Mark’s image for this is an F1 race. The cars are queued before the lights go. When the second hand hits, they launch. Nobody is adjusting their mirrors.

And one line from Mark worth putting on the wall:

“Building a list is not prospecting.”

Josh’s assignment on this: be honest with yourself. What do you use for creative avoidance? What friction points are keeping you from being ready? Remove them all. “That little bit of pain you’re going through now pales in comparison to the pain you’re going to feel when there’s no pipeline.”

Just Do One

Mark’s trick for getting started, which Josh borrowed: just do one.

It’s how Mark gets himself to work out. Put the shoes on. Get on the treadmill. Commit to three minutes.

Same with the list. You have 25 names. Commit to the first call. Then see if you can do three.

Once you’re in the zone, you don’t get off the treadmill.

Mark pairs it with the Pomodoro technique. A 25-minute block. One thing only. Then a five-minute break and back at it.

Josh on the distractions that pull people off the block: email, phone notifications, messages. “No one’s business is going to burn down in 25 minutes.”

Give yourself 25 minutes. That’s the first step for just about anybody.

Bring the Future Pain Forward

Mark shared the mental trick he’s used for years to stop procrastinating.

He takes the pain his future self will feel, the empty pipeline, the missed month, and brings it into the present. He sits with it.

“When I feel that, that’s my greatest sense of energy. Otherwise it’s too easy to push it off.”

Both Mark and Josh sell for a living. They feed their families on it. That future pain is real, and pulling it forward is what gets the block started.

Fat and Happy

Josh raised the other thing that kills prospecting: success.

A rep is on a roll. Deals are closing. They’re working accounts through the middle and end of the pipeline, and nobody notices the front end has gone quiet. They’ve gotten fat and happy and forgotten what got them there.

Mark calls the result lumpy sales.

His fix is a line from a friend: “Your convictions are only as strong as your pipeline.”

He gave a live example. He got an RFP the other day. His response was gutsy, with conditions attached, because he wants the business but doesn’t need it. He has a full pipeline. He’s been prospecting.

Josh summed up the posture in one Sandler rule: “I’m financially independent and I don’t need the business.”

Prospecting is how you earn the right to say that.

Two More Sandler Rules

Mark threw out two more.

“You don’t have to like prospecting. You just have to do it.”

“Every unsuccessful prospecting call earns compound interest.”

Both of them have watched it happen. You prospect in one area and nothing comes of it. Then a bluebird shows up from somewhere completely unrelated. Mark calls it a law, like gravity. Josh says it’s a whole other episode.

For Sales Managers: Set a No-Fly Zone

Mark’s last point is for the leaders listening.

Salespeople’s calendars fill up with things that aren’t prospecting. Internal meetings. Reviews. Everything else.

Some organizations have fixed this with what Mark calls a no-fly zone: blocks of prime selling hours where the company cannot book internal meetings with the sales team. He’s seen it work in many places.

Josh added the part that makes it stick. The sales leader has to go to bat for the team internally. “We have to make sure there’s space for this to happen.”

You hired these people to sell. Protect the time.

The Action You Should Take This Week

Pick a 25-minute block. Put it on the calendar.

Build the list before the block, not during it.

Find a buddy, or set up a Zoom room with the team.

When the clock starts, just do one.

Then debrief, and celebrate that you did the work.

Episode 70 Takeaway

Josh: “We’re constantly feeding the top into the pipeline so that it doesn’t become urgent.”

Mark: “You don’t have to like prospecting. You just have to do it.”

Consistency is the whole game. Not one big event a year. A rhythm.

What’s Next?

If your team’s prospecting is inconsistent and you want help building the rhythm, message me. Phone camps, power hours, no-fly zones, the whole structure. We help sales teams implement Sandler strategies that actually work.