I’ve never been trained how to prospect.

While it’s easy to play the blame game, your ability to improve your skills is in your hands. All it takes is a little initiative.

The truth is, you can stay where you are — average — and mope. Or you can take charge of your career path, invest in yourself, and become a top performer.

Let me share with you six things that you can do right now to overcome any lack of prospecting training.

1. Don’t blame your boss, you are in control.

Hey, I prospect, but my company’s never trained me. Who says your company has to be the one to train you? You can train yourself. You can do it.

There are plenty of learning tools available for you.

2. Invest your money.

I hear this excuse: “I wish I could read your book, but my company won’t buy it for me.” Do you expect your company to feed you? No. You buy it yourself, with the money you earn.

With the money you earn, you can invest in yourself. You can buy the books that you need or the programs you need.

If you have a gym membership, what is it designed to do? It’s designed to help get you in shape, right? You paid for that, right? Yes. In the same way you invest in your body or your health, try investing in your mind and in your career.

3. Dedicate 30 minutes a day to learning prospecting.

If you want to become a master, you’ve got to put the time in.

There are lots of theories out there: it’s the 10,000-hour rule, or the 30,000-hour rule. Throw all those out the window. If you just take 30 minutes a day and invest it in what you want to learn, within two months, you’re going to be better than the vast majority of people you go up against.

If you were to take 30 minutes a day and invest in learning prospecting — that might be watching videos, reading blogs, reading books, studying, role-playing with yourself, connecting with people who do it well — I guarantee it, within three months you would become much more capable in prospecting.

Would you become an expert in a few months? Probably not, but it’s okay. You would be well on your way to becoming an expert.

4. Create a peer group.

Get three or four other people who have the same challenges as you do, and collectively work together as a peer group to challenge and share and lift each other up. It is amazing at what a peer group can do.

What happens is, as one person begins to achieve success, you can ask, “Hey, what are you doing? Share with me.”

You exchange ideas. It’s amazing how you lift each other up.

5. Become an subject matter expert.

Prospecting encompasses a lot of elements. Lead generation, qualifying…that’s just the start of it. Become a subject matter expert in one specific piece.

It might be qualifying the prospect, or getting the right leads.

6. View each day as a learning day.

I do this even today. Each day I ask myself, what did I learn today?

Every day I learn something new to help me prospect. What does that do? It makes me better.

Don’t wait around for your company to take initiative for you. Take the reins on your own learning and your own professional development.

Learn From Your Prospecting Mistakes

One of the excuses I hear from salespeople about why they don’t prospect is something just didn’t go right in the past. And as a result, that negative experience sticks with them going forward, and they can’t get past it.

Let me share six things that you can do right now to help you get past any unfortunate events you’re dealing with.

1. What can you learn from it?

It may be a past experience that just went wrong. What can I learn that will help me not do it again going forward? If I do something right, I learn a little, but if I do something wrong, I learn a lot more.

This is your opportunity.

2. After you learn from it, let it go.

Be thankful. Tell yourself this: I’m glad I had that experience. I’m glad that didn’t go well, because I learned X, and I’m better because of it.

Thank goodness I’ve had problems prospecting, because it’s made me a better salesperson today. Shifting to this mindset helps you focus on everything that you’re doing.

3. Focus on your success today.

Don’t focus on what didn’t happen yesterday. Focus on today.

As I go through each morning, I wake up and I say, “Who are the people who I’m going to have a chance to prospect with today?” I may or may not have conversations with them. I may or may not get connections with them, but I’m going to focus on them today and try to make that the best experience possible.

4. Be proud of what you’ve become.

If I were to tell you about all of the failures I’ve had in sales over the years, you would be blown away. But you know what? We all have. But I look at those failures I’ve had, and I say thank goodness.

It’s made me an unbelievable salesperson today. It’s given me an incredible level of confidence because I’ve been able to deal with those issues, and that’s huge.

5. Play the long game.

It’s so easy for us to focus on that negative experience that happened last week or just yesterday, or maybe it was just an hour ago. Hey, relax, forget about it. The sun’s still going to come up in the morning.

Play the long game and know you’re going to be able to take another 10,000 shots. When you play the long game, it’s amazing how those past experiences just fade away.

6. Always have someone around you who supports you.

This is why I’m such a strong believer in having that peer group or that mastermind group. When you have somebody who can support you, they’re going to help pick you up when you’re down. Sales is not a solo activity. Sales is a team sport.

MANA welcomes your comments on this article. Write to us at [email protected].