Prospecting plan
Track your results with four numbers.
Four numbers are enough to know where your prospecting breaks. Everything else is decoration.
In short
Four numbers are enough: first contacts made, meetings obtained, quotes sent and quotes signed. It is the gaps between those stages that tell you where to act: many contacts and few meetings points at targeting or opening line, many quotes and few signatures points at follow-up.
Read the gaps, not the values
An isolated rate means nothing: 3% conversion is excellent in one trade and disastrous in another. What is readable is the ratio between two consecutive stages of your own funnel, compared with itself over time.
Three diagnoses cover almost every case. Few meetings for many contacts: the problem is upstream, in the target or in the first twenty seconds. Many meetings and few quotes: you are meeting people who are not decision makers, or not at the right moment. Many quotes and few signatures: the problem is almost never price, it is the absence of follow-up.
What not to track
The number of contacts in your database measures nothing: a list grows on its own, and nobody ever signed because a file held a thousand rows. Time spent measures nothing either, unless you confuse activity with agitation.
Be especially wary of weighted pipeline value. It is pleasant to look at, it inflates naturally, and it creates the illusion that the work is done when nothing is signed. Track it if you like, but do not steer by it.
Weekly measurement, monthly review
The four numbers are recorded once a week, in five minutes. That is frequent enough to correct a slipping pace and spaced enough not to react to noise.
The analysis of the gaps happens monthly: below that, volumes are too small for the ratios to mean anything. Drawing a conclusion from three meetings is the surest way to abandon a strategy that was working.
Frequently asked questions
Is a spreadsheet enough?
Yes for the four numbers, as long as you are alone and the volume is modest. It becomes a handicap as soon as several people work the same list, or when the follow-ups to schedule exceed what memory holds.
How much data before the ratios are reliable?
Around thirty observations per stage before trusting them. Below that, the gap between two months is chance far more than trend.
Should you track email open rates?
Useful as a diagnostic when email is your main channel, but it replaces none of the four: a high open rate that produces no meetings is worth nothing.
Keep track of every follow-up
Lea CRM keeps your contacts, deals and reminders in one place, and shows you every morning what needs doing today.