Marketing Your Consulting Services.pdf - epiheirimatikotita.gr
Marketing Your Consulting Services.pdf - epiheirimatikotita.gr
Marketing Your Consulting Services.pdf - epiheirimatikotita.gr
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How About Results?<br />
I enjoy the process of ferreting out information about potential clients. I developed<br />
this process over twenty years ago and continue to use it with remarkable<br />
success. I usually find enough information for at least one-half the potential clients<br />
I target. Ninety-five percent of all recipients are interested enough to speak to me.<br />
More than half of them a<strong>gr</strong>ee to meet me within the month. And of those half become<br />
clients within a year. The rest become contacts, resources, or clients in the<br />
future because I stay in touch with them.<br />
These odds are much better than the success rates for cold calls and the process<br />
is more fun. I enjoy the challenge of the research and the creativity of the letter<br />
composition. And I particularly like beginning a relationship in this positive way.<br />
I once read a formula that went something like this: Make five prospecting<br />
calls every week and send five prospecting letters every week for fifty weeks each<br />
year. That results in five hundred contacts every year. If you close just 2 percent,<br />
or ten projects, at an average project fee of $25,000, it equals $250,000 in revenue<br />
for the year.<br />
You can have this same success rate. Although the process takes some investment<br />
up-front, the odds of an immediate sale are much <strong>gr</strong>eater than with cold calling,<br />
you will begin to build relationships for future sales, and it’s much more fun.<br />
And you too will find that this is a very positive way to begin a client-consultant<br />
relationship.<br />
PROSPECTING IN OTHER WAYS AND PLACES<br />
What About the Referrals You Receive?<br />
You have a marketing plan and you have targeted specific companies or industries.<br />
Should you follow up on unsolicited referrals? Absolutely yes. Follow up with every<br />
referral you receive from friends, family, and colleagues. Even if the project is not<br />
quite right for you now, the meeting may lead to other work in the future. And you<br />
may also ask these new contacts if they can refer you to someone who might be<br />
able to use your services. This is networking at its finest.<br />
In addition, if the project isn’t right for you, you could pass it on to someone<br />
who could do it. Passing it on to another colleague will prompt that person to<br />
consider you for referrals too. Recognizing leads for others is critical to successful<br />
networking.<br />
Prospecting in All the Right Places: How Do You Find Clients? 155
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