There is a lot of panic and uncertainty out there among salespeople today. Most hear the endless news stories of our current economic recession, and they just assume they will have a much harder time selling.

The truth of the matter is that it's actually easier to sell more in a down economy - if you're using intelligent sales prospecting methods that work!

When business slows down, what do most sales managers tell you to do? Of course - make more cold calls! However, cold calling is the least efficient method of sales prospecting. In fact, it has the lowest percentage success rate of all sales activity.

In a recession, many salespeople change careers, and many companies either downsize or go out of business entirely. And this is good news for you. With less competition, it's much easier to get in front of prospects who want to buy.

However, there's a catch: You need to go about your sales prospecting intelligently and with character and integrity. This means that cold calling is out. Entirely. Not only is it painfully inefficient and fails to find a sufficient quality and quantity of qualified prospects, but it really creates an image problem for both you and your company.

Most decision makers look down on salespeople who make cold calls. Sure, you might encounter an old-timer now and then who respects you for "getting out in the trenches," but they're few and far between. The majority of decision makers and business owners will think that if you're cold calling, then you must not be doing a very good job of serving your existing customers, because if you were, you'd be able to survive on referrals alone.

Cold prospecting also makes your company look bad. You only want to sell to successful businesses, right? Well, an owner or executive of a successful business knows that successful companies made it by running well-planned and well-executed marketing campaigns, not by sending their sales reps out to blindly call on people at random. The top companies out there have a marketing machine in place that hands hot leads to their sales forces.

As the best sales manager I've ever had said, "We don't hire the best salespeople and spend thousands training you to have you doing the job of a minimum wage telemarketer." I couldn't agree more.

Here's how the most successful companies today do it: They run marketing and advertising campaigns, which may include the Internet, radio, television, newspaper, direct mail, or all of the above. People respond to the marketing (that's why it's called direct-response marketing) and an inside salesperson in a call center qualifies the lead for the outside salesperson. Some will even set the appointment for you. The outside salesperson then shows up, and has an easy time making a sale.

This is intelligent sales prospecting.

However, since most companies still don't get this concept, if they're not providing you with qualified leads, then it's up to you to generate them. And you're not going to find them by cold calling. Intelligent sales prospecting in the 21st Century means using well-planned marketing systems of your own to get hot, qualified, ready-to-buy prospects to call you. And if you run your sales prospecting efforts properly, your phone will be ringing off the hook!