In this interview Jeb Blount and Douglas Burdett discuss why marketers and salespeople need to get up front and personal with proactive outbound prospecting on the Marketing Book Podcast. Here’s what Douglas had to say about the interview:

“It’s no secret that the way people buy has changed. Now, instead of going to a salesperson to get information, buyers prefer to do online research and use technology to avoid unwanted sales and marketing messages.

Modern buyers are like Ninjas – you don’t often see them until they’re ready to pounce and buy. Perhaps not surprisingly, in this modern era of informed Ninja buyers, along come loud, so-called sales ‘experts’ who preach that prospecting— proactively pursuing prospects— no longer works. What’s particularly dangerous about this wrongheaded teaching is that it’s exactly what struggling salespeople want to hear. Why do the hard work to prospect and generate new sales opportunities when some ‘guru’ lets you off the hook by telling you that it’s ‘old school’ and ‘doesn’t work anymore’? Why block out time to pick up the phone if instead you can tweet, write blog posts, or play around on LinkedIn for hours?

Well, here’s the Blount truth – the number one reason for failure in sales is an empty pipeline and the root cause of an empty pipeline is the failure to consistently prospect.

In “Fanatical Prospecting,” Jeb Blount explains that by ignoring prospecting, many otherwise competent salespeople and sales organizations consistently under perform.”