Stop All Prospecting Today!
By: ActionCOACH
Date: 22 / 12 / 2015
Date: 22 / 12 / 2015
How much time do you or your sales staff spend looking for new prospects rather than developing a stronger relationship with your best clients?
At this point I typically hear “I’ve already gotten my current clients to buy, it’s time to move on to the next prospect!”
OK, but how do you get that next prospect?
There’s newspaper advertising, cold calling, networking, trade shows, radio, TV, the list goes on and on.
What’s missing?
Asking current clients for qualified referrals.
A few months ago, I was talking to a business owner whose company had serviced the Indianapolis community for more than 50 years.
He spent nearly an hour discussing the difficulties of identifying and landing new business in today’s market. He informed me that the yellow pages aren’t as effective as they used to be, most print advertising doesn’t work and that most salespeople were terrible at finding new leads.
After he was finished, I asked him if he provided his customers with a good service/product.
He was proud to say that he did, and also mentioned that he had between 175 and 200 current customers. In addition, he hadn’t received a complaint for any reason in more than 6 months.
The next question I asked would tell me what I really wanted to know, and what I probably already knew. I asked him if he asked current customers for more business or for referrals.
He explained that he was much too busy taking care of current orders and managing his sales staff to bother his current customers with that type of request.
So he has 200 satisfied customers that took him years to find, and he thinks that the best way to grow his business is to continue working on strategies that he already admits don’t work very well?
I explained to him that it would make more sense to go and ask those satisfied customers if they wouldn’t mind helping him find a new client.
Haven’t you earned the right to ask after years of great service?
For the first time during our meeting he was silent. Although a little embarrassed, he admitted that I was right.
In the bestselling book, The Power of Focus the authors recommend the following steps to growing your business:
So, how do you identify and stay in touch with these core clients?
Now, I am not saying that prospecting is a bad idea. Every business needs new customers and prospecting has to be a key component in your growth strategy.
But, before you hire a new salesperson or send out another direct mail piece, make sure that you have a solid strategy for developing meaningful relationships with your best customers. These relationships will result in your most qualified and profitable prospects.
I encourage you to spend the next few minutes thinking about your best customers. Who are they? And more importantly, when is the last time you spoke to them? Start your list today!
Mark McNulty is a Business Coach affiliated with ACTION International, the World’s #1 Business Coaching Team. He can be reached at (812) 372-7377 or at markmcnulty@action-international.com.
Brad Sugars founded the brand Action International in 1993 when he realized there was a disconnect between business advice and implementation. The answer was Action! Brad Sugars created a business coaching company so that business owners throughout the world can realize their goals in business. Today the company is known as ActionCOACH. To learn more about business, visit Brad Sugars Review blog!