Customers come and go on a regular bases, some will be persuaded by your competition while others will simply go out of business in these hard economic times. Regardless of the reason you must consistently and regularly replace these customers with new customers. If your business is going to be a survivor in this economy you must beef up your prospecting.
When you really dig into prospecting, you will find it to be a rather complex part of the sales process. You must identify companies and or consumers who can buy your products or services. There are several ways to do this in which I cover in the next few paragraphs.
You have to be able to separate a prospect from a buying prospect, so your efforts can be executed in a manner that gets you a sale. Your long-term success will require you to get as much information from a prospect as quickly as possible, so you can qualify them as a buying prospect or simply a prospect to be cultivated at a later date.
Here are two steps to the maximizing your prospecting process.
Step One: Buy A List
This is a very simple step, study your sales over the last 6 months to a year and develop a buying prospect profile – then acquire a list from a mailing list broker based on your data. Be sure to get at least three quotes from different brokers. You are looking for a quote that includes, a total count, business name, contact names, address, phone number, email addresses and the number of employees each business has.
Step Two: Blow Them Away
Offer the prospects a special price on your product or service. More than likely they are already buying from a competitor – and your offer should blow them away making it impossible for them to resist. Make it a first time buyer promotion, being sure that they know this is a limited offer with an expiration date that is coming up quickly. Even if you don’t make money on the first deal, if you dazzle them with quality and service, price will not be a big issue when working on the next deal.
I have even heard of companies losing money on such a deal, you should consider it a cost of marketing or an advertising expense. The bottom line is you are now listed in the company’s database as a vendor and you have moved a prospect to a buying prospect. A customer that is now open to doing business with you in the future.
To Your Success!
Tim Somers
Bizarre Promotions, Inc.
Using a “loss leader” to generate that first sale from a prospect is important because it begins the habit of buying from you instead of the competition… So few businesses understand the true need for such a bold gesture to attract business away from a competitor, although the even fewer that understand it will also use it as a marketing tool regluarly will reep the benefits and survive in this or any other economic condition.
Great comment Bill – you are right on. When I worked for Kmart Headquarters – we produced the Sunday sales paper with at least one item at cost – like Toilet Paper, this drove traffic to the stores knowing consumers would by more than just the TP since they were already in the store.
Exactly – Grocery Stores attract us each week with SPECIALS on Milk, Meat, Eggs and TP since they know everyone needs these weekly, but the SALE Price is just enough to get you into their store instead of the competitors. What I like to see is the Cereal SPECIAL “10 boxes for $20″… Cereal has gotten so expensive, although if you really break it down it’s only about $0.50/ bowl. I know the stores love it too, because how many times have you seen some poor sap with 10 boxes of cereal, just to get the SPECIAL? Lesson to learn: Most Grocery stores will sell you the SPECIAL even when you buy just ONE of the TEN… I think they have to honor it. But it’s a GREAT UpSell!