Are you panning for gold?
You have to consistently be working on new leads.
It is not easy work, but it is work that you have to be doing everyday, prospecting should be a part of your business work every day.
Prospecting is an important part of business sales.
All businesses need a diverse revenue stream (see previous post). Building a good prospecting funnel/habit will ensure you are always ready to grow. It will ensure that you have the prospects in the works that you can turn into a diverse revenue stream. You might be thinking that you are the right size and you do not want to grow any more. While it is important to ensure that you do not grow too fast it is also important to remember that If you aren’t growing you are dying. So always have some prospects in the works to replace customers that leave, because clients will leave. They will move, they will grow, they will get into a new industry, it happens all the time, so be prepared for it to happen, because it will.
Talking about changing needs of customers, do you know the deal breakers for your clients, or potential clients? Do you know how long it will take you to close a new deal?
Knowing these key things will ensure you have the right number of potential clients in the queue to always be growing and diversifying your revenue. You will have to be consistently panning through prospects for this to be true. It will be hard work because it is not easy to find those quality customers among all the okay and bad ones. One thing to keep in mind if you are really over loaded is there are services you can use to prospect for you. One example is Appreciated Assets.
Where are your clients “hanging out”?
If you want golfers, do not go to a baseball stadium and assume you will find golfers. If you are looking for gold you do not go to the city park you head out west to the mountains and streams that have the gold. When you find the right place to prospect then it will be a matter of finding the right prospects to convert to customers. Just like panning for gold you will have a lot of rocks, or prospects that will not become clients. You will have to throw a lot of prospects out. The great clients may be hard to find, but they will be very valuable.
How do you distinguish the gold from the fools gold, what about the silver?
Once you have your pan full of prospects how do you know a great client from a time sucking client (fools gold)? You will also find some silver in there too (good clients) that will also help you grow. You will hire some bad customers and some good ones. You will learn how to identify the gold, from the silver, and the fools gold. The key is to ensure that you are learning with each client you hire. When you work with a bad client, what did you miss in the prospecting process? Some clients will look very similar. But they are not all equal in value to your company. As you continue to learn make some guidelines for yourself so your a continue to grow and get better.
So remember:
You have to always be prospecting.
It will be hard work, but you need a constant supply of prospects to always be growing.
When you hire a bad client, learn from it so you and identify that fools gold next time.
Thank you for your time reading this post. I hope you found small amount of value here. If you did please share it with 12 or so friends. :-)