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How do y'all prospect for customers?
#1

How do y'all prospect for customers?

Before I start, here are some threads on this topic, but with no actionable advice in my opinion (hence I started this new thread):
archive/inde...37864.html
printthread.php?tid=55734
archive/inde...266-3.html
thread-63447.html


I'm struggling with the whole concept of prospecting. I've been doing some prospecting but it's a lot of mucking about for me and I feel like I'm trying to learn how to walk when I can only crawl and what I really need is the ability to run.

I've taken out some books on the subject from the library, but almost all these books are written by salesmen for salesmen, and ignore the realities of being a small business owner/sole proprietor. Another issue is that they focus on direct selling, which I don't think suits my personality. In the same way as indirect game worked best for me, I find that indirect prospecting has so far brought me customers - in other words, finding someone who knows a potential customer and then the 'middle-man' refers the customer to me. (Maybe I'm too cold and expressionless to charm customers directly?)

The internet as a teacher is not much better, way too many resources on closing the sale and too little on opening customers in the first place.

I need something like 'Bang' and 'Day Bang', to explain to me what prospecting is and how it's done in a way that makes sense to someone of low social intelligence such as myself.

But since I couldn't find anything like that, I turn to the forum. I hope y'all can share some of your experiences.

How do y'all prospect for customers? What are your prospecting systems? What resources are great for non-sales professionals who need to prospect? What's better for prospecting - real world or online interactions?

If you had a little brother who you taught game to but is now coming to you to ask how to meet customers, how would you walk him through all the baby steps? Assume that he can close a sale but his problem is he doesn't know how to find people to sell to.

I'm sure there are many other guys in the same boat as me, so on behalf of all of them, thanks in advance for any lessons shared.
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#2

How do y'all prospect for customers?

What are you selling? Everything is different.
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#3

How do y'all prospect for customers?

How are your competitors doing it? Do they advertise, if so, where?

There are some nuances based on what you're selling, of course, but your best outlets are:

PR - if you have any kind of USP, then this is your best source of customers in the early stages, and it's free. Get people to write about your service, your product, etc. Doesn't have to be big outlets, just bloggers or whatever. Find people who'll write about it. If you can't, write about it yourself.

Advertising - expensive, but effective if you have a decent product/service. Every ad I've ever placed has at least washed its face. A good product advertised in the right publication will bring traffic.

Flyering - again, if you can build your business based on local customers, then this can be effective. Run a promotion, or just make a small, simple advertorial, and go out and stick 1000 through people's letterboxes.

Trials - get people talking about what you're doing. Offer free trials to people who might be influential for you. You could even say that you'll do the job for free but would ask that if they like it, they give you 3 phone numbers for people they think would like your product/service.

ebay - if you're selling a product, online platforms are a good source of enquiries, and boost your web presence.

Website - depends what you're selling. If it's a premium service or premium product I think websites are massively overrated as sales tools. All the people I know with these kind of offerings would agree that even good websites generate almost no business passively, though they can be very useful once you've used one of the other methods to create awareness of your existence.

Word of mouth - in the long run, obviously this is the absolute best form of prospecting, because your customers are doing it for you. It takes time to reach this point though, and you'll have to hustle like hell on the others to get there.
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#4

How do y'all prospect for customers?

^ To add to the above, cold emailing and/or calling can be effective if done correctly.

Some marketers or marketing tools frown upon cold contact and will tell you to allow people to opt-in before you contact them, but this isn't a good model to follow if you're a new business.

- No one knows you exist.
- You don't have the SEO juice yet.
- A paid ad won't get you much because you don't have brand recognition. You are targeting people for the first time, and...
- you don't yet have an audience you can "re-market" to.

Ignore the naysayers and go ahead with cold calling and cold emailing. However, don't expect 90% of people to even respond, and of those who do respond, 8-9 out of 10 won't be interested. It can be demoralizing at times, but just keep plugging through and following up until someone says yes.

You can hire someone to do this for you if you have other tasks you want to focus on.
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#5

How do y'all prospect for customers?

For starters check out a book called Million Dollar Prospecting Techniques, put together by an insurance sales organization but applicable to any industry.. Its part of a series the other two are Million Dollar Sales and MD Closing.

Let me know what you think of the book.
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#6

How do y'all prospect for customers?

https://www.amazon.com/Million-Dollar-Pr...rospecting
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#7

How do y'all prospect for customers?

If you are selling more complex B2B services, some adages ring true that underly the actions I take.

- the prospect reveals everything they need to become a client in the first five minutes

- sometimes we're more like a shrink than a vendor


So wherever I am, when I meet someone who owns or operates a business, my chit chat aims to suss out the following tidbits that people conveniently love to discuss:

- How's business?

- What is killing it / profiting / growing lately?

- What sucks / wastes time / works poorly / has logistical issues?


After keeping the focus on them, I hit them with:

- "Wouldn't it be great if X could connect to Y and then sync with your Z?" [storefront / fulfillment center / accountants / vendors / etc.]

- "You could just A, B, then C." [high altitude, no tech details, focus on end result]

- "By the way, I have a company. We basically do That and things like it for businesses like yours -- enough shop talk though -- [motion to the rest of the environs] -- let's meet next week!"


This gambit works at all social events where you never know who you may meet.

Easily works on employees too if they are or know the Decision Maker at their company. Just phrase it like "we should meet with your co-worker/boss" and remind them how great they'll look for connecting with you and fattening the bottom line, even (Especially!) if it's outside their normal duties.

---

This is how my "b-game" has developed over the past decade. I've scored huge contracts and client relationships from this. The biggest most profitable score was from meeting a dev at a birthday party who worked for a very sexy data startup. Their pressing needs were less sexy, outside of their employees' core competencies, and we happily served them on retainer for a couple of years.


Edit: after executing this a lot, friends and acquaintances start to take note and will make intros and connections for you, even sometimes cutely "pre-pitching" in the same vein.

It helps to be around events and places with industrious people.
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#8

How do y'all prospect for customers?

The majority of my stuff comes from word of mouth and me telling people what I do in the winter. I coach another sport in the summer and that links nicely in because all of those summer people are winter prospects;

Business cards
Flyers
Talking to people, don't be afraid to tell them what you do and how it can solve problems for them. You want to get know locally as the go to guy for what you do.

Additionally, I come up with ideas and promos that my competition aren't doing and publicise them. Often your competitors are narrowly focused, and a little outside of the box thinking goes a long way.

Ps. Remember this, in your field, you are an expert at what you do. Don't be afraid to tell people this. Its something to be proud of. I talk to people about skiing and my ski school every day and I have a repution for loving skiing. In this way, it's a little like gaming chicks, just talk to them, not everyone will want what you have to offer but you have to let them know you're offering it or they won't know.
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#9

How do y'all prospect for customers?

If you tell me what you're selling I can help you put together a way to do it.

Your hate of direct selling is going to screw you in the end. It's like going to the club alone and not be willing to approach any of the women just standing around. It's possible but not usually optimal (some cases it might be).
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#10

How do y'all prospect for customers?

Thomas the Rhymer, can you give us some hints on what product it is you're trying to sell?

I got into selling IT related security products and boy, selling to nerds is the absolute WORST!

This company insisted on cold calling and more recently emailing which I believe to be a foolish waste of time. In the planning stages, I said very vocally that direct sales has a place but we would be better off approaching a few relevant tech blogs and sponsoring them first to get some name recognition and a few customers that way. Those sponsors were dirt cheap too and would have given us some direct recognition for our money.

Nope, cold calls only!

In the past 3 months of cold phone and email prospecting, i've only had 1 guy interested who we didn't even contact directly!

I'm grateful I can confidently pick up the phone and prospect, but i'm highly doubtful of its long term effectiveness especially in this day and age where people immediately hang up on telemarketers.

I love reading cold calling success stories, but my gut is starting to tell me these guys are either just spam approaching or worse big game trollers. My gut says selling should be easy in the right environment and for the 21st century, phone and email prospecting isn't it.

Since this is still my first sales gig, i'm hesitant to keep going. In a few weeks, i'm going to be going to a trade show. If I can't score sales from prospecting in person, i'll be quitting and looking for other work. Someone's got to pull the plug.

456 and H1N1 have some really great advice. 456's selling technique is great (similar to mine) and H1N1 has good cheap advertising.
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#11

How do y'all prospect for customers?

Thomas, I have used two methods in several small businesses, and actually thought about writing an ebook on this subject.

Anyway, here are the basics of the two methods. I am going to assume that you are starting completely cold, and having to generate outgoing leads from scratch.

Below this, I will get into the actual steps I use during the cold call and follow up process. If you just want specific tips, skip the first section.

1. Spray/Pray (will be successful with grind and organization)
- typically start with this, and do it yourself (will give you a better idea for future if you want to hire/train/pay people)
- you cast the widest net possible because you are not sure of market response and psychographics yet
- basically pick an industry in the phone book and start calling everyone
- keep track of everything in the simplest or cheapest CRM or spreadsheet to start
- you will need a solid two weeks (try to set aside at least a month) to do proper follow-ups to sales (for most prospects)
- combo of phone and email

2. Targeted / Qualified Prospecting
- from method 1 you should have made a few sales, seen who is easy/hard to deal with, figured out a bit about demo and psychographics, learned times of day when prospects are most receptive, and learned the hierarchies of your industry (how to deal with gatekeepers if they exist, if people expect a call/email/in-person meeting to close the deal, etc etc)
- to give you an example, I have a side business right now that targets local family-run auto vendors like tinting and windshield replacement. When we first started cold calling, my partner and I thought it was best to try to figure out the owner and talk to them off the first call. Lots of these little auto shops have the owner answering phones and doing the brunt of the work. Super easy to book calls with them and get decisions! But the problem, we learned, is that for the service we are selling, it only works with the most organized shops that have a dedicated receptionist to handle incoming calls. So in our prospecting step, we directly target places that have a receptionist. It took over a month of prospecting, sales, and delivery of service to figure this out.
- now that you have more specific targets, you can use online sources to get more qualified leads (BBB typically shows owner's name and sometimes contact details, LinkedIn can be used to get warm leads, review sites like Yelp show you who is a trustworthy vendor, Facebook pages show you typical response times, etc etc).
- you are now at the stage where you will be prospecting and qualifying almost as much as you actually spend calling (or you will train someone to do the prospecting for you, since you have identified where it is valuable)
- in the future you want to move towards a split between incoming referrals and the targeted method

***

Specific Cold Call & Follow Up Steps

You can go direct right off the bat and even get people's credit card over the phone after 5 minutes, but for most personalities this leads to burnout and it's not a good long term model, especially if you want to scale and train people for the future.

Here is a model that is boring but I have seen work over and over.

1st Contact - Cold Call
- ask to speak to Decision Maker (optional)
- briefly say who you are, where you are calling from, and a very simple benefit you are offering
- pause for a second... let them object or just take a moment to process it (doesn't matter if they tell you to fuck off even, you can proceed to the next step anyway)
- ask for permission to send a short email about your offer, get "the best email address to reach you" and get the proper spelling of their first name
- unless they want to know more about your service/product, get the fuck off the call
- on your way out, casually drop "I'll send you this email as soon as I hang up, it will come from [YourName]@[YourDomain.com], and will follow up next week"

2nd Contact - Send Email
- use a signifier in the subject line (something they would remember from the call, so they instantly recognize who the email is from)
- minimize all fluff wording; re-write and re-write until the email is basically just solid copy benefits and use "you" instead of "we" or "I" (eg. instead of "we do this" use "you will get this")... but there is room for one fluff sentence near the top that says something like "like I said on the phone" or "we spoke briefly on the phone about getting you more widget sales"... just something to remind them yet again who you are and how they know you (people forget most things instantly after they are said, unless you remind them a few times)
- end email with an easy way for them to get in touch with you if they really want to know more, but reiterate that you will call back next week
- schedule this shit like clockwork to make sure you follow up next week like you said

3rd Contact - Book Meeting / Pitch
- now that they know you and have agreed they would benefit from your offer, it depends on the industry and person... some people will only make decisions face to face so you have to book a proper in person meeting, and that would be your only priority from here. Some people can be pitched over the phone, or sent to a video online, or whatever.
- the pitch should still be benefit heavy, but now you want to focus on two things: specific parts of the process (so they get a vision in their mind of the pain removal and future benefits) and to ferret out any objections they might have to buying immediately. Most people will lie (not out of spite), and often when they say things like "can't afford it" they really mean "I don't trust you enough". You have to get these objections out on the table so you can address them. Let them ask as many questions as they want; the more or the harsher the questions, the more they are interested (generally). Of course if someone just wants to get started, get out of your own way and sign them up. Take first payment right then if you can, to make it more real in their mind.

4th Contact - Close
- sometimes you can close them right after the pitch, often they will want to think about it a little more but if you are organized and have a simple enough offer you can email them 1-3 days later to close. Again, feel out your industry. You might have to take them to lunch to close them.
- unless you want to follow up forever, endlessly asking them for the sale and boring each other to death, it helps to have some urgency steps built in. One form of urgency could be a free trial period that must be taken advantage of in the next X days (or a special reduced introductory rate). Another could be exclusivity of service area or distribution ("lock down the sole spot to be X distributor in Y area, but I am talking to two other guys who are making decision by end of week"). Yet another could be pre-booking ("we have 5 slots available for next month, get penciled in").
- depending on your industry and service, you can close and seamlessly start onboarding by just asking them what options they want or getting their decision on the next steps in the process (eg. "you can get notifications by text or email, which do you prefer?", or "the next step is to pick a delivery date each week, we can do Wednesday or Thursday...").

Basically these 4 steps are the same type of open/rapport/comfort/close steps from game. Rush them at your peril.

Remember that serious people are busy and have a lot of their plate, and following up in a week and having to remind them of who you are is normal.

Unless you are super hurting for money, avoid one-night-stand type sales where you sell as fast as possible, because they typically are bigger pains to deal with as customers, don't understand the benefits and limitations of your offer, and don't end up referring more people in the future.

This is rambly but feel free to PM me if you want to chat about this more.

EDIT: I want to add that I have done prospecting/sales exclusively over the phone/email for years without ever actually meeting people. But lately I have started doing more in-person meetings for my side biz. So these steps above can work for both. I would avoid ever stopping in unannounced and cold in-person as the first step though. You can cover more ground at the start by calling/emailing.
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#12

How do y'all prospect for customers?

I've been cold emailing to drum up business, and I got an idea on how to do this better.

I haven't tested it yet, so I want to run this by you.

For the initial outreach email, I briefly explain who I am, what I do, and how I can help them (first couple of sentences).

Then instead of hoping they reply back, I include an email opt-in WITHIN the initial email. After the introduction paragraph, I ask if they want me to follow up with them later. Under that question, there will be two buttons:

[Yes, Let's Keep in Touch!]

[No, I'm Not Interested]

That way, they don't have to click reply, and type out an email to someone they don't even know. All they have to do is click Yes or No, and get on with their lives.

The benefit for me is I know who is interested and who is not. No more wasting time following up with those who never were interested to begin with, and focus more on nurturing prospects who indicated interest from the beginning.

I haven't tested this yet, but I want to. I'm assuming this is possible to do in a CRM or MailChimp or some kind of software, right?

What do you guys think?
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#13

How do y'all prospect for customers?

Quote: (09-29-2017 03:56 AM)CleanSlate Wrote:  

I've been cold emailing to drum up business, and I got an idea on how to do this better.

I haven't tested it yet, so I want to run this by you.

For the initial outreach email, I briefly explain who I am, what I do, and how I can help them (first couple of sentences).

Then instead of hoping they reply back, I include an email opt-in WITHIN the initial email. After the introduction paragraph, I ask if they want me to follow up with them later. Under that question, there will be two buttons:

[Yes, Let's Keep in Touch!]

[No, I'm Not Interested]

That way, they don't have to click reply, and type out an email to someone they don't even know. All they have to do is click Yes or No, and get on with their lives.

The benefit for me is I know who is interested and who is not. No more wasting time following up with those who never were interested to begin with, and focus more on nurturing prospects who indicated interest from the beginning.

I haven't tested this yet, but I want to. I'm assuming this is possible to do in a CRM or MailChimp or some kind of software, right?

What do you guys think?

I think it's a great idea. I personally found that the easier you make it for the other person, the more willing they are to meet. Your method takes the work out of being sold to.

The only thing I can think of maybe adding is a 3rd option, being ''Not right now, I'm too busy. Contact me again in 3 months."
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#14

How do y'all prospect for customers?

Quote: (09-26-2017 11:22 AM)The Beast1 Wrote:  

Thomas the Rhymer, can you give us some hints on what product it is you're trying to sell?

I got into selling IT related security products and boy, selling to nerds is the absolute WORST!

This company insisted on cold calling and more recently emailing which I believe to be a foolish waste of time. In the planning stages, I said very vocally that direct sales has a place but we would be better off approaching a few relevant tech blogs and sponsoring them first to get some name recognition and a few customers that way. Those sponsors were dirt cheap too and would have given us some direct recognition for our money.

Nope, cold calls only!

In the past 3 months of cold phone and email prospecting, i've only had 1 guy interested who we didn't even contact directly!

I'm grateful I can confidently pick up the phone and prospect, but i'm highly doubtful of its long term effectiveness especially in this day and age where people immediately hang up on telemarketers.

I love reading cold calling success stories, but my gut is starting to tell me these guys are either just spam approaching or worse big game trollers. My gut says selling should be easy in the right environment and for the 21st century, phone and email prospecting isn't it.

Since this is still my first sales gig, i'm hesitant to keep going. In a few weeks, i'm going to be going to a trade show. If I can't score sales from prospecting in person, i'll be quitting and looking for other work. Someone's got to pull the plug.

456 and H1N1 have some really great advice. 456's selling technique is great (similar to mine) and H1N1 has good cheap advertising.

1 interested suspect/prospect after 3 months of cold calling in unacceptable. Are you using your own scripts or one that's been provided to you? If you're forced to use one provided to you, then quit immediately. If you're using a script you made yourself, then pm me, I have some recommendations that can you out.
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#15

How do y'all prospect for customers?

Another question... for those of you who favor cold calling, have you ever thought about hiring a virtual assistant to do the cold calling for you?

I'm seriously considering this as well.
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#16

How do y'all prospect for customers?

^-- I don't have much experience with cold-calling -- but I would imagine my vocal tonality, charm, and quick wit would render it a task NOT outsourceable to a virtual assistant unless they had the same attributes.... in which case why are they VA-ing?
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#17

How do y'all prospect for customers?

Quote: (09-29-2017 09:04 AM)456 Wrote:  

^-- I don't have much experience with cold-calling -- but I would imagine my vocal tonality, charm, and quick wit would render it a task NOT outsourceable to a virtual assistant unless they had the same attributes.... in which case why are they VA-ing?

I think he meant hiring a inbound sales guy to make the calls for you. There are hired guns out there who do this type of task.
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#18

How do y'all prospect for customers?

Quote: (09-29-2017 07:42 AM)CleanSlate Wrote:  

Another question... for those of you who favor cold calling, have you ever thought about hiring a virtual assistant to do the cold calling for you?

I'm seriously considering this as well.

I would never hire a virtual assistant for cold calling, bad idea. I would stick to hiring an actual sales guy. Even though he will be more expensive, you will get better results. Imagine some random Filipino calling someone in the US offering a service, they would get hung up on immediately.
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#19

How do y'all prospect for customers?

Quote: (09-29-2017 03:56 AM)CleanSlate Wrote:  

I've been cold emailing to drum up business, and I got an idea on how to do this better.

I haven't tested it yet, so I want to run this by you.

For the initial outreach email, I briefly explain who I am, what I do, and how I can help them (first couple of sentences).

Then instead of hoping they reply back, I include an email opt-in WITHIN the initial email. After the introduction paragraph, I ask if they want me to follow up with them later. Under that question, there will be two buttons:

[Yes, Let's Keep in Touch!]

[No, I'm Not Interested]

That way, they don't have to click reply, and type out an email to someone they don't even know. All they have to do is click Yes or No, and get on with their lives.

The benefit for me is I know who is interested and who is not. No more wasting time following up with those who never were interested to begin with, and focus more on nurturing prospects who indicated interest from the beginning.

I haven't tested this yet, but I want to. I'm assuming this is possible to do in a CRM or MailChimp or some kind of software, right?

What do you guys think?

I prefer "click reply and _____" (tell them the action they should take).

Forget about making it easy. Make a small hoop they need to jump through.

Why?

Because your offer should be a no-brainer pain-removal strategy that they can't help but say yes to. Your offer should be clearly written so they are ready to take the next step.

If not, the problem is on you.

Don't make it easy. Make it sorta hard.

Not complicated. Not annoying. Not hard.

"Sorta hard".

Think of it like smiling at everything a girl says ("easy") vs going 50/50 smiling and cock-eyed challenging ("sorta hard").
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#20

How do y'all prospect for customers?

Quote: (09-29-2017 07:42 AM)CleanSlate Wrote:  

Another question... for those of you who favor cold calling, have you ever thought about hiring a virtual assistant to do the cold calling for you?

I'm seriously considering this as well.

Cold call yourself AT LEAST as many times as it takes to make one sale (preferably 4 sales). Then you know the ratios you should expect (calls to sales).

You will also hear all the common questions and figure out the psychographics of your target client.

Only then can you competently train someone else to do this.

I don't want to sound like you need to find someone who does it as well as you -- you don't. You will leverage the division of labor. Meaning that the thing you do most well that is worth the most to you makes it valuable to hire something who does something 75% as well as your second most valuable thing to do the second most valuable thing all the time while you focus on the most valuable thing.
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#21

How do y'all prospect for customers?

Ask your existing customers for referrals - people forget to do this.
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#22

How do y'all prospect for customers?

After talking with Suits, I've decided as part of my prospecting/marketing I'm going to make some flyers and distribute them in my target communities.

I thought this podcast was a useful introduction into how to make a flyer:
https://www.entrepreneurs-journey.com/16...ng-flyers/

Basically, keep it simple, use a headline that clearly summarizes what you do, and include a call to action; target the flyers to the most appropriate audience; most importantly (for me), take the initiative, hand out the flyers yourself if you have to.

Anyone else ever tried the flyer thing?

Also, I wanted to share this great post by Suits, where he shares other prospecting/marketing options:
thread-63161...pid1651653

Quote:Suits Wrote:

Assuming that you know what your target client looks like, make a plan based on what your experience tells you is most likely going to get yourself some paying customers.

Various options include:

(1) Create a website with the purpose of creating an identity as an expert.
(2) Create a website so that potential clients can find you if they search for certain keywords online.
(3) Create a website to direct potential clients to as it will do a better job demonstrating that value you offer than you can do in person or over the phone.
(4) Create a website to direct potential clients to help with the job of demonstrating the value you offer.
(5) Create Youtube videos explaining the services you offer.
(6) Cold call potential clients.
(7) Organize and lead some webinars that will be interesting to your ideal target client.
(8) Offer local events that will attract potential clients.
(9) Get yourself invited onto podcasts, radio or TV shows to discuss topics that will help stabilize your identity as an expert in your field and/or bring your existence to the attention of potential clients.
(10) Puts ads in print or web media.
(11) Pay or otherwise convince bloggers to feature your work (or the products that accompany your consulting services.
(12) Create a referral program where existing clients can get a discount for referring new clients.
(13) Go door to door in an office tower to advertise your services.
(14) Advertise on your Facebook page.
(15) Guest write blog posts on relevant blogs.
(16) Put your company name, a very brief description of your work and your phone number on your vehicle.
(17) Create business cards and hand them out to everyone.
(18) Engage in guerrilla marketing campaigns.
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#23

How do y'all prospect for customers?

A good overview of this is the book "Traction". The summary is:

-Pick 2-3 marketing channels
-Test each quickly and cheaply
-Ditch the ones that dont, test others
-When you find a promising one, focus on it 100% and squeeze everything out of it

A good place to start is: what are your competitors doing?

You can get stellar ROI from tapping an "underused" marketing channel, but usually the best place to start is just do what others are doing.

For online services, good basic channels are outreach (cold email, FB, LinkedIn) and ads (PPC).

For online products, ads and some kind of inbound funnel - content/SEO etc.

It's not difficult, but can take time and be tedious. Success will likely ultimately depend on your product-market fit and margins.
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