Strategic thinking is the ability to analyze your goals, environment, and resources, and plan the best course of action to achieve them. It is a valuable skill for any professional, especially in the context of business networking. In this article, you will learn how strategic thinking can help you identify potential clients, and how to apply it to your networking activities.
A potential client is someone who has a need or a problem that your product or service can solve, and who is willing and able to pay for it. However, not every potential client is the same. Some may be more aware of their needs and solutions, more interested in your offer, more ready to buy, or more loyal to your brand than others. Therefore, you need to segment your potential clients based on their characteristics, preferences, and behaviors, and prioritize the ones that are most likely to become actual clients.
Segmenting and prioritizing potential clients involves identifying and evaluating criteria to classify and rank them. Common criteria include demographics, psychographics, behavior, needs, awareness, and readiness. You can use surveys, interviews, focus groups, analytics, customer profiles, personas, scoring models, and matrices to segment and prioritize potential clients. It's essential to select criteria and methods that are relevant and reliable for your business and networking goals.
BONUS TIP: It is for this VERY reason that MY CONTACT LIST LOOKS LIKE A CHRISTMAS TREE!!! I use emoji's in front of my contacts' first name - Hearts, Double Hearts, Thumbs Up or Down, and Question Marks. TIME is the prime factor here. If the contact calling is a past & ideal client, and I am in a meeting with a "thumbs down" prospect, I am going to excuse myself to take the call. Or vice-versa, if I am in front of my ideal client & past customer - who's time is more valuable than my own - I am going to pass a "Thumbs Up" call onto voicemail. And, by searching certain emoji's, I save a TON of time priortizing follow up calls during minimal and valuable down time, as well as putting together a holiday list!
Finding potential clients requires researching and reaching out to the people and organizations that match your segments and priorities. To do this, you can leverage your existing network of clients, partners, suppliers, colleagues, friends, and family for referrals, introductions, testimonials, or recommendations. Additionally, you can use your online presence such as your website, blog, social media, email list, online communities, forums to showcase your expertise and value proposition. You can also use offline presence like events, workshops, seminars, trade shows and conferences to meet potential clients face-to-face. Lastly, you can use outreach tactics such as cold calls, emails, messages and letters to initiate contact with those who are unaware of or uninterested in your offer.
When it comes to strategies and techniques for finding potential clients, networking is a key factor in building relationships with those who can help you achieve your goals or connect you with others who can. Marketing involves creating and delivering value to your target market while communicating the benefits of your offer. Sales involves persuading and influencing potential clients to choose your product or service while closing the deal. Ultimately the choice of sources, channels, strategies and techniques should be effective and efficient for your business goals.
Qualifying potential clients means verifying and confirming that they are suitable and ready to become actual clients. It involves asking and answering questions to assess their fit, interest, and urgency. For example, do they have a clear and specific need or problem that your product or service can solve? Do they have the authority and budget to make the purchase decision? Do they have the desire and motivation to buy your product or service? Do they have a realistic and reasonable timeframe to buy your product or service? Various methods and tools can be used to qualify potential clients, such as questioning, listening, objection handling, and trial closing. The key is to choose the methods and tools that are appropriate and respectful for your business and your networking goals.
Nurturing potential clients is essential to building trust and rapport with them, as well as providing them with relevant and valuable information, guidance, and support throughout their buying journey. This involves delivering and following up on your offer, as well as creating and maintaining engagement. You can do this by educating potential clients about their needs, problems, solutions, and benefits; entertaining them with humor, stories, emotions, or creativity; inspiring them with success stories, testimonials, or case studies; persuading them with logic, facts, or evidence; or reminding them of your offer with updates or follow-ups. You can use various sources and channels to nurture potential clients such as email for personalized messages, social media for engaging content that showcases your brand personality and values, phone calls to establish a personal connection, or videos that demonstrate your product or service. The key is to choose the ways, sources, and channels that are consistent and coherent for your business and networking goals.
Measuring and improving your results requires tracking and evaluating your performance and outcomes, as well as identifying and implementing areas of improvement. This means setting and reviewing goals, metrics, and indicators, as well as applying feedback and learning. Common goals, metrics, and indicators include reach - how many potential clients can be found and contacted - engagement - how much potential clients are interested in your offer - conversion - how many potential clients become actual clients - retention - how many actual clients stay with you - and referral - how many actual clients recommend you to others. Various methods and tools can be used to measure and improve your results, such as analytics to monitor data and statistics, feedback to collect opinions from potential/actual clients, testing to optimize offers/content/strategies, and learning to update knowledge/skills/methods. Ultimately, the key is to choose realistic and actionable goals, metrics, indicators, methods, and tools for your business.