How To Prosepct For Clients and Referrals

prospecting If you want to learn how to prospect for clients, but you want to make it painless and easy, here are a few tips that will help you get more new clients, customers, and referrals guaranteed…

Times are tough and business is slower than normal, but your success as a sales person depends on your ability to draw the attention of new customers and referrals. Just because things are tight with the economy doesn’t mean your business has to suffer.

First, let’s clarify exactly what prospecting is. Prospecting for new clients consists not of actually selling, but of networking with new people to form a list of possible leads. While prospecting can certainly lead to a sale, you won’t normally make that sale right off the bat. Here are a few things you can do to prospect for new customers and referrals.

How To Prospect For Clients: 5 Simple Tips.

Create a lead generating website. People absolutely LOVE getting things for free. Create an ebook or report on a popular subject and advertise it on your website. In exchange for the free ebook, your visitors must give you their email addresses and “opt in” to your mailing list. You can then use this mailing list to send additional information and to follow up with information on the paid services you have to offer.

Ask your current customers. It sounds stupid, but why wouldn’t you ask people who are already with your services to put in a good word for you? Ask them outright if they have any referrals. If you don’t want to ask outright, introduce a referral program in which your current customers can earn discounts for sending new business your way.

Learn about the latest technological advances. Businesspeople are very busy and they love using the newest gadgets to make their lives more efficient. If you find potential prospects want to talk via video conference or Skype you’d best learn how to accommodate their desires. Don’t ask, “What’s Skype?” Learn what it is and don’t give your prospect the urge to find a representative they don’t have to teach. You might even consider launching a video conference seminar so that you can share valuable information with potential prospects without them having to leave their busy offices.

Forget dinner and golf – do something fun. Business meetings over lunch, dinner, and golf are easy – but they’re boring. How many rounds of golf do you have to play, and pay for, to make a sale? And, if you’re bored, imagine how your potential prospect must feel. Try something unique and unusual, like a bowling alley, pool hall, fishing trip, or even a community faire. Taking your prospect someplace unusual and fun will not only set you apart from the competition but will give you a relaxed atmosphere in which you can get to know each other before you begin discussing business.

Conduct a free seminar. Let’s say, for example, you represent a lending institution and your goal is to meet prospects so that you can close new loans. You would benefit by offering a free seminar on debt reduction to the public. Education is half the battle when it comes to finances. Teach your audience how to control their finances and reduce debt – and then explain how your services and financial products can help. You can either collect names, addresses, and phone numbers for later follow-up or have enough representatives on hand to start applications right at the seminar site!

Create unique sales copy. The other day I got a newspaper in the mail with a huge colorful headline about a charity event at a local car dealership. When I picked up the “paper” I realized that it was actually a one page advertisement. The front side looked like a newspaper and discussed the dealership’s involvement in the community, but the back side was a standard automobile advertisement, complete with photographs of the cars in stock. The advertisement grabbed my attention and, had I been in the market for a car, I probably would have gone out to visit.

How To Prospect For Clients: Summary

It’s important to continue following up with your potential clients once you’ve implemented a few new prospecting methods and created a list of leads. Continue sending new, valuable, and free information along with the occasional sales pitch. The more educational you are, the more likely it is your leads will think of you first when they are ready to make a purchase.

Of course, once you get to know your potential customers you can attempt to make a sale. You should never attempt to sell your product to a new referral at the time of first contact. Instead, make a valid attempt to understand exactly what your potential customers need while at the same time providing them with the best service possible – before, during, and after the sale. They’ll appreciate your attention and in return send even more business your way.

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