You may be surprised to learn that even MDRT members don't like prospecting, but they know it's something they have to do. Instead of dreading prospecting you should be looking forward to it with excited because you have to have prospects to sell. You don't look forward to prospecting because you want to be told "no". A system for prospecting will help you to get good at it. Of course, a system is worthless if you won't consistently implement it. Why you don't like prospecting now, and how you could like prospecting?

In general there are two ways you can approach prospecting, face-to-face or direct response. Face-to-face prospecting involves: networking, cold calling via the telephone, cold calling via knocking on doors, and asking for referrals. When you think about prospecting you usually only ever think of the face-to-face options.

And you probably have the greatest resistance to the face-to-face approaches to prospecting. The reason you have the most resistance to face-to-face prospecting is because you run the risk of being told "no", and you take that "no" personally. That happens because you don't have a way to communicate the value of what you do in terms of what the people you want to work with want. The other approach to prospecting involves direct response prospecting. In this case, you'll still get a "no" when the other party isn't ready to buy, but it won't be face-to-face and it won't feel personal and it can still be a way to make a connection that turns into a buyer later. And there are a number of things you can do to increase the likelihood of getting a "yes" response to your direct response prospecting.

When you have something the people you want to work with want it makes prospecting a whole lot easier. People want knowledge and you can easily fulfill that want and use it to improve your prospecting efforts. But to have that work you have to know what they really want and position your offer in a way that makes them want to take advantage of it.

Think about giving first. There can be great value in giving information that isn't directly related to what you offer, but that you know they want. You increase your value just by serving as the connecting point between what they want and how to get it.

Prospecting should be less about you being rejected, and more about filtering out the people who aren't a good fit for you. Grow out of that "I can help everyone mentality". It just makes your life more difficult. The only way to get business is to prospect, so you may as well learn how to do it right, and when you do you won't hate prospecting any longer.