Marketing Kamran on 24 Aug 2007 01:30 pm
Trials and Tribulations of Finding New Prospects
Getting a constant supply of new prospects is a do-or-die issue for most businesses. In real estate it’s called “farming.” In some other businesses it’s called “prospecting.” But the core task never changes – finding new customers ready to buy your goods or services.
A blog post recently has started a lively discussion on the best methods of prospecting and 51 readers joined in, generously sharing their best tips and practices. (See here)
Here is a summary of the many excellent answers provided to the question “where and how does one find the next prospective client?”
- Trade shows.
- Host an information gathering “workshop” at a local hotel.
- Working the personal connections through friends and associates.
- “Member-gets-member” type of social-networking campaigns.
- Faxing, emailing information.
- Encouraging referrals by providing “appropriate incentives.”
- Using professional networking sites like Linkedin, Ecademy, and BNI.
- Going back to existing happy customers for repeat sales.
- Public speaking.
- Inviting them to lunch with another satisfied customer.
- Calling people with a good phone script in hand.
- Joining local and national professional organizations.
After all is said and done, however, I personally believe that there is no substitute to delivering a top-notch product or service to a satisfied customer and keeping up the relationship with regular business communication. Once you establish the genuine value of your service, networking builds up its own momentum and rewards in due time.
The simple fact that genuine value is always rewarded by more business sometimes gets lost in this day and age of hi-tech wizardry and cornucopia of management “techniques.” Sometimes sticking to the fundamentals is the best long-term strategy to grow your business and raise your bottom-line at the same time.