Salespeople come in many forms.  Some are just plain awful, while others are mediocre.  Still others are solid and consistent over time.

Then…there are the so-called Superstars, the top 20 percent performers who produce 80 percent of a company’s sales.  Superstars earn significantly more than others and sustain that distinction. 

They excel at personal selling.  Superstars are highly skilled, competitive, and driven; moreover, they understand all facets of the sales process, are curious, ask insightful questions, seek to understand, place prospect needs first, have high emotional intelligence, and possess a winning mindset.

However, here’s where it gets interesting.  These attributes are present in many salespeople. They’re smart, driven, skilled, well-educated, and eager to succeed. Nevertheless, they routinely underperform their Superstar counterparts.

That reality puzzles salespersons, sales managers, and HR specialists alike.

So…what is the real secret to sustained sales success?  Here is what the author of Fanatical Prospecting and sales expert Jeb Blount says:

The path to superstar-level success in sales is brutally simple.  Simple, mind you, not easy.  It’s a Paradox of Basics:  A truth that is so blatantly obvious it has become impossibly invisible.  A truth that remains frustratingly elusive for most salespeople, causing so many promising, intelligent, talented people to fail miserably in sales, and likewise, businesses to close their doors and entrepreneurs to crash and burn.

 The secret that differentiates Superstars from everyone else is:  Fanatical prospecting!

Don’t believe it?  Consider your top producers or those of your friends’ businesses.  Superstars are relentless and unstoppable prospectors with laser-like focus on keeping their pipelines brimming with qualified prospects. 

They constantly seek their next opportunity…always fanatically on task. They embrace all forms of prospecting including email, networking, cold-calling, telephone prospecting, asking for referrals, thought leadership, following up on leads, and introducing themselves to strangers.

Superstars are not seasonal; rather, they prospect during good times in anticipation of an eventual rainy day, and do so in bad times, because prospecting is essential to success…even survival.  Finally, they prospect when they’re not in the mood because of an obsession to fill their pipeline.

What Superstars don’t do, according to Blount, is:

• Make excuses: “Not a good time to call, because she may be in a meeting.”
• Whine: “The leads are bad.”
• Procrastinate: “No time now, so I’ll catch up tomorrow.”
• Complain: “Our CRM system is terrible.”
• Live in fear: “What if he says no?”

So…don’t believe those who tell you that prospecting is ‘old school’ and no longer works.  Nothing could be further from the truth!  Tweeting, blogging, and posting on LinkedIn are helpful, but that role is supplemental…not substitutional.  

If you want you and other members of your sales team to be Superstars, get fanatical about prospecting.