Unveiling the true power of prospecting.

What prospecting really means…

The prospecting journey for small business owners typically involves several key steps. Here are the main steps involved:

Identify Target Audience: The first step is to define and identify the ideal target audience for your products or services. This involves researching and understanding your potential customers' demographics, needs, and preferences.

Lead Generation: Once you have identified your target audience, you need to generate leads. This can be done through various methods such as networking, referrals, content marketing, social media campaigns, advertising, and attending industry events.

Qualify Leads: After generating leads, it's important to qualify them to ensure they have a genuine interest and potential to become paying customers. This step involves evaluating leads based on criteria such as their budget, timeline, and fit with your offerings.

Establish Communication: Once you have qualified leads, establish effective communication channels to engage with them. This can involve phone calls, emails, social media messaging, or face-to-face meetings. The goal is to build relationships, understand their needs, and showcase the value you can provide.

Present Solutions: Present your products or services as solutions to address the specific pain points and needs of your potential customers. Customise your pitch and emphasise the benefits and unique value proposition your business offers.

Address Concerns and Objections: During the prospecting journey, potential customers may have concerns or objections. Actively listen to their feedback, address their questions, and alleviate any doubts they may have. This step is crucial in building trust and establishing credibility.

Follow-up and Nurture: Consistent follow-up is key to staying top-of-mind with potential customers. Utilise customer relationship management (CRM) tools to track interactions, send personalised follow-up messages, and nurture leads over time. This helps to build relationships and increase the likelihood of conversion.

Close the Sale: Finally, the prospecting journey culminates in closing the sale. This involves negotiating terms, finalising contracts, and converting the prospect into a paying customer.

Post-Sale Relationship Building: Once a sale is made, continue to nurture the relationship with your customers. Provide excellent customer service, seek feedback, and explore opportunities for upselling, cross-selling, or generating referrals.

In working with my female founders, I am very careful to let them know that this is not a linear process.?

For example - once you have a viable product (that will sell to your target audience) you need to keep evaluating their progressive needs. Adapting and finding ways to provide further services can be a pitfall for small business owners, because they often don’t have the resources to support the growing need of the client.?

Depending on what stage you are at in business, will mean you have to address this with real strategy and reflection.?

The 1 RULE you must follow

Making a note of every interaction and prospect movement is critical to you understanding your pipeline.?

You need a spreadsheet, which keeps a log of the conversations you are having (no matter how big or small.)

After a period of no less than 12 months - looking back at this information and finding out the key patterns of your prospects' behaviour is key.?

Then - YOU DOUBLE DOWN ON WHAT IS ALREADY WORKING….and stop doing what isn’t.

Treat your business like a business and not a hobby.

If all of the above sounds and feels like ‘too much’ it’s time to step back and read this blog again.?

Systems and processes need to be build so that you are not making business decisions based purely on your emotional intuition.

Whilst that can be very helpful in making bigger decisions in business - the overall prospecting flow needs to be analysed with data that is factual.?