So there I was going door to door with a satchel full of brushes and stuff. It was horrible. I've never had so many doors slammed in my face. The first week I think I made about forty bucks. How could I pay rent on that? But motivational mumbo jumbo from boss kept me perservering. I kept going thinking that I would get hang of selling.

The second week I was given a new product to lug around with me door to door. It was one of those electrostatic hand-pushed carpet sweepers. The thing didn't weigh very much but after several blocks it started getting heavy and annoying. So now I had something in each hand as people slammed their doors on me.

That first day of second week I didn't make a single sale and I was ready to quit. I was frustrated. It was on next day that I rang a doorbell and door was opened by a small Korean woman. The woman looked at me and then carpet sweeper and then her face lit up with joy. She looked very surprised as well. Her mouth opened as though to say something but nothing came out.

I jumped into my sales spiel yammering away about top of line quality brushes and other must-have quality products. Rarely had I been able to get through my entire spiel without someone stopping me or closing door but this woman listened to every word I had to say in rapt attention. She seemed excited by everything I said. When I came to a breather in my monologue she pointed at carpet sweeper, saying in broken English, "Tell me about carpet sweeper."

So I told her all about new deluxe carpet sweeper with its many features and its incredible introductory low price. She didn't really seem to care about what I said though. Her smile widened as she abruptly waved me inside. I followed her through a hall into a living room and then into another room. She walked very quickly.

Where sales people used to spend lots of time prospecting for leads and cold calling, now they can simply log on to Internet and buy, sell or even trade leads and contacts at a new website.

Run a quick search on Google and you will find over 400, 000 listings under term "sales prospecting". Most of listings involve list brokers, marketing companies who supply leads and lists or actual articles on how to effectively Finding Sales Leads and Contacts goes Hi-Tech use your time to find and generate new sales leads.

Traditional sales prospecting involves making cold calls. Either by telephone or dropping in on prospective client or customer. These are time-tested means of acquiring contacts to sell to. And they do work.

Many sales people would tell you though, that these methods usually require a lot of time and effort. In fact, when I worked as a professional sales person for a direct mail advertising company, I was spending nearly 80% of my time cold calling and qualifying leads. The majority of this time was spent trying to determine who would actually be making buying decision.