For small business owners in the service industry finding the next client is a constant ongoing prospecting process. The problem is that for the vast majority of small business owners, is that they have little or no process. They don’t have a good prospecting strategy. This means that they have to spend hours every week in order to generate a few scant leads.
Is there a better way?
There’s a programme on TV at the moment which can teach us a few lessons and it’s not what you think. The programme is called ‘Aussie Gold Hunters’. The programme follows the fortunes of a hardy bunch of gold prospectors in the Australian outback, each battling against brutal conditions (the temperatures in the main gold prospecting season can get up to 45 deg’s C plus) to find gold on their patch.
The vast majority of the prospectors go over their ground with a metal detector with a single pass and that’s about it. They do find some gold and have some limited success, occasionally hitting a ‘golden patch’ or stumbling across a large nugget of gold worth thousands of dollars.
The most successful crew called the ‘Dirt Dogs’ have a more complete prospecting process. So not only will they prospect across their lease using metal detectors finding the easy gold on or near the surface, they will also take the topsoil (dirt) off the lease and put this through a machine called a dry blower. The dry blower will find all the small flecks of gold that they missed with their detectors.
However, it doesn’t end there for the ‘Dirt Dogs’ as the waste dirt from the dry blower will next be processed using a cyanide leaching plant. In this process, the cyanide is diluted with water and then filtered through the dirt. The cyanide chemically bonds to the microscopic specs of gold left behind by the dry blower and is captured in carbon. The carbon is then processed to release the gold trapped in it.
All of this means that the “Dirt Dogs’ effectively get three bites of the cherry when they’re prospecting, compared to those just using metal detectors. The amount of gold they find is not just three times as much as the others but ten times.
So what business lessons can we take from this? Your prospecting system (and it has to be a system) needs to recognise that prospects need more than one touchpoint. One touchpoint would be the equivalent of passing over the metal detector for our gold prospectors. Yes, you will hit upon the occasional nugget and reap occasional rewards but you’ll be missing out on the vast majority of potential customers.
The problem is that developing a successful prospecting system can be really hard work for the majority of small business owners and this is where my 100 prospect process is ideal.
This works really well for those who are working in the business to business field where the addition of just a few more clients or strategic customers can make a massive difference. There are 3 simple steps that you need to take to make this strategy successful.
Step one. Identify 100 ideal customers or clients that you’d like to do business with.
Step two. Research them so that you have detailed information, not only on the company but the buyer, the one who makes the purchasing decision. The one you actually need to influence.
Step three. Develop a creative campaign that is focused on communicating with these prospects as directly as possible. The idea here is to get a meeting with them. Most people say that if they can get a meeting they’re successful about 50% of the time in converting the prospect to a customer. So if they needed an extra 2 clients or customers then 4 meetings would probably do it.
The problem most people have with implementing steps one and two is that they can’t identify 100 prospects to start the process. They haven’t done the hard work that makes the selling easy. They don’t know who to target because they are after anybody with a pulse and a wallet. However if they had a well defined prospect avatar then it would be a relatively straight forward process that they could outsource to a virtual assistant who could then build up a database for them.
Once you’ve got your database then it’s a straightforward process of following step three, communicating with them. This could be through direct mail or it may even be inviting them to a seminar that you know that they’ll be interested in. The idea is to get a meeting with your prospect.
Again as with steps one and two, the problem for most people is that they don’t have the time or knowledge to put together a communications sequence to make this work. However, it is possible to outsource this step to a good copywriter who understands the concepts of direct marketing. They’ll produce the necessary sequence for you to use. Something like this:-
Just like our gold hunters the ‘dirt dogs’, you need to think about using your prospecting so that you’re not just doing a single sweep with a detector but running your prospects through a process that maximises your return. We know that people don’t necessarily respond on the first touch (some do) but need a few additional touches to nudge them along.
Using this systemized approach to prospecting you can easily get those additional 2 or 3 or even more clients every month pretty much on automatic. If you would like to know more about how I can help you with this process juts click the button.
Twelve intensive half-day meetings.
