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How to attract new business leads

Written by: Mark Gwilliam

Article Overview: Hitting the right prospect-rich vein in business is like being given a get-out-of-jail-free card in Monopoly or a toll-free pass at the expressway. In other words, it's a fast, free ride to a successful business outcome. Just like a vein of gold, one prospect will lead to another until you're swamped with orders, customers and profits. The question is: how exactly do you find such prospects?

How to attract new business leads

Prospecting involves casting your net far and wide to determine where the more promising opportunities lie. Think of it as a market reconnaissance mission. Far from being a hit-or-miss exercise where you cannot easily anticipate how well things will go, the art of prospecting is actually a very precise way of determining the most efficient use of your marketing dollars. Here are some tips in prospecting:

Look before you Leap
Prospecting involves time and money. To avoid wasting both, you need to do some research beforehand. Read local trade magazines and newspapers. Pinpoint the organisations, areas, churches, groups, and networks to which your target market belongs.

Make sure that your target customers truly belong to these groups before you finalise your prospecting plans. Furthermore, contact your friends and acquaintances to see if they can introduce you directly to your prospects.

Systematise
The goal of prospecting is to gather as much useful information using the least amount of resources possible. Thus, you need a definite prospecting plan outlining your prospecting dates, locations, activities, and goals. This will let you cover the widest area possible and the greatest number of prospects without spending more than the necessary amount of time and money.

Careful planning, moreover, will let you prioritise highly productive business activities.

Generate Impact!
Of course, prospecting won't be very effective if you can't create a favourable impression on your prospects. To ensure that you are remembered or referred, briefly explain what you do and offer in the most interesting way.

For example, if you're in the construction business, you can provide energy-saving construction advice to people who are planning to build their own homes. Save your sales slides in your handheld device, so you can do an impromptu presentation whenever an opportunity arises.

Lastly, don’t forget to distribute professional-looking business cards containing pertinent information – the services your offer, your contact numbers and a website they can check for more information.

Remember one more thing. Be creative! Create opportunities where apparently none exists. Turn PTA meetings, wedding receptions, grand openings, and other similar activities into prospecting opportunities. As an alternative, you can let a professional "mine" your market for you; you can also purchase a leads list from a reputable list company.

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Article Tags: acquaintances, amount of time, business activities, business cards, churches, construction advice, construction business, efficient use, energy saving, favourable impression, handheld device, productive business, promising opportunities, prospects, reconnaissance mission, slides, target customers, target market, time and money, trade magazines



Related Forum Posts
Re: Conversion rates - Great point Kevin, word-of-mouth is a great way to convert leads as they are being recommended by someone they trust. My job is converting website visitors into leads, and of the leads we get from the website/s we convert around a 12.5% (of leads). At this point I think our website is the best leads vehicle right now.
Re: How much time during the week do you devote to prospecting? - I like to think of this as a case of the 80/20 rule. For me the key to my business is generating leads for it, I have a system in place that will allows me to automate a lot of the work, I still need people flowing into the system, so in order to answer your question I would say i spend 80 % of my time marketing my business. I think for most businesses,networkers and sales people the problem of too many leads would be a real nice one!!!
Re: Direct Mail Postcards - Great discussion! I just started using direct mail postcards for a business of mine. The leads are generated by the company and then sent to me to place on the postcards that are already made up. It's important to get targeted leads for any form of advertising venture. Finding quality leads isn't tough, but takes some work. Luckily for me the company does this work for me. These people are interested in starting a home business, working from home, etc. That's what I'm advertising on the postcards, so I would say they're very well targeted. The postcards are also made by the company who have over 20 years of experience in generating responses. Now, the problem I see as I deal with this directly working for an insurance company where I call leads, many people may forget that they ever requested information on the subject. In this case the postcard would probably get thrown away, unless it really grabbed their attention or struck their memory. The same problem can be seen when someone needs to confirm their request for being added to your email newsletter.
I LOVE being able to choose the clients I take on... - As I offer a service to businesses I've found there is nothing more enjoyable then meeting a client, discussing how you can improve their business (in terms of generating leads), creating the solution and then seeing them receive more targeted leads everyday because of the solution you've setup, which they previously had no access to. Often clients like I've described above are so happy with you and the way you conduct your business that they will often refer you to other businesses they know of and will always come back to you when they want to extend their own business again. If you can afford to pick and choose the clients you take on, I highly recommend choosing the businesses that will trust you and listen to your advice. It's not worth taking on a business that is critical of absolutely everything that you tell and offer them.
Sssshhhh...Just trying to slip in quietly... - Heard me huh? OK. Well, I guess as long as I have your attention, I'll just let you know I'm here to try and add as much value as I can when it comes to fielding questions and concerns about how to generate more sales leads from your website, email marketing and ads. I've been writing articles for the Evan Carmichael site for a couple of years and thought I'd check out the forum and figure out ways I could contribute. Got tons of sales and direct response copywriting experience that has helped my clients attract more prospects and convert them in profitable customers. I promise to chip in as much as I can so you can take advantage of my background and skills and apply it to your own business so you can grow your profits faster. Looking forward to participating.


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