Cultivating Your Prospects

In Junior Secondary School, I got introduced to agriculture. I became fascinated by plants and their lifecycle. I came back home and cleared a part of the land and started a garden. I planted maize, spinach, beans, and tomato. I was really excited about doing this. It was amazing how a single seed has so much potential that cannot be harnessed until it is cultivated.

Tetteh Quarshie from cocoa seeds to Ghana in 1879 after he had returned from his stay in Equatorial Guinea. When he got to Ghana, he purchased land and planted the cocoa seed. His first seedlings died but he persevered. Eventually, the crops grew and produced a bumper harvest. When the other farmers realized the wealth, he was making from it, they procured seedlings from him and gradually cocoa farms started appearing in other parts of Ghana till it became one of the major exports of Ghana

Inside a seed is the potential to produce a forest but until it is cultivated, planted, and nurtured, it won’t unleash its potential. A forest starts from a seed. Most times we take for granted what a seed will do. If we mismanage that seed, we rob ourselves of a future. When a seed dies, the future potential of that seed dies with it.

Every prospect has potential. They are just like the seed that needs to be cultivated. If you give up on a prospect because of a lack of interest, you may miss a great business in the future. Every prospect has the potential of repeat purchase and also referring your business to others. It is therefore worth it to cultivate them.

The iPod took time before breaking even in the market. What if after a year of not seeing results, Apple had decided that the product wasn’t good for the market and cannibalized it or abandoned it for other products that would have sold? The reason Apple didn’t abandon it was because they have already validated all hypotheses and knew the business model works. They have attained product-market fit.

When you achieve product-market fit, the next thing to do is to cultivate your prospects. Keep cultivating them. Like a seed, they will become aware of what you offer and how they need it and then start purchasing. The major challenge only comes if you have not attained product-market fit. That means what you are doing are trial and error.

A company that isn’t consistent about its marketing campaign or strategy, hasn’t validated its customer acquisition system. Empirical data gives you assurance, while the lack of it only gives you hope. You can hope all you can if you don’t have a system that works in bringing clients consistently, you will continually frustrate everyone.

A farmer has to persist with the seed to unleash its full potential. Once you have validated your customer segment, value proposition, cause, customer relationship, channel, and attained market-fit, you are sure that it's just a matter of time before your marketing gets the right people in. All you have to do is persist.

The major challenge of new products is obscurity: no one knows you. They have the problem you are out to solve, but they don’t know about you. They don’t even trust you when they first saw your marketing campaign. You have to break through all that to create a connection with them. Most companies try to communicate their offering to their prospects. That is doing it wrongly.

You communicate with your clients but to your prospects, you try to connect and develop rapport. You already are connected with your clients but are not with your prospects. You have a common ground with your clients, that is why they are your clients, but you don’t have with your prospects. You have to find the common ground and create connection and rapport.

Here is how to cultivate your prospects:

1. Forget yourself, focus on your prospects: Focus on how you will help them reduce or eliminate their pains

2. Educate them about what they are going through. Give them value through the education

3. Find the common ground: build a relationship on a common interest

4. Stir their passion with your cause. All purchases are emotional. When your cause resonates with them, they will align with you.

It takes time to convert a prospect into a client, you are not in control of that time. But you can speed it up by the way you build relationships with them. When you do your part well consistently and persist through early failures, you will unleash the potential of your prospects till you have a forest of customers.

Remember, a forest starts with nurturing one seed. Cultivate and nurture that one prospect. Don’t give up. Don’t grow weary in cultivating your prospects because in due season you shall reap if you do not lose heart.

JOIN THE APRIL COHORT

When you join the April Cohort of the Startup Academy, in 3 months you will learn to:

1. Attain offering-need fit

2. Validate your Value Proposition

3. Prove Your Business Model

4. Develop your Customer Acquisition System

5. Introduction to Culture Design

To be part, kindly send a WhatsApp message to +2348101671745

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