Prospecting Sources

What would happen to your business if you had multiple prospecting sources that were consistently sending you leads? Most small businesses dream about creating prospecting sources, because leads that come from prospecting sources are often easier to convert.

Someone they know and trust has given you a stamp of approval. This means that their first impression of your business, before they even meet you, is positive. In addition, the time to convert the lead can be quicker as they often have an immediate need, which is why your prospecting source gave them your information.

Yet, many small businesses struggle to create the prospecting sources that are needed to gain a consistent flow of leads. Why? Because most small businesses don’t have a strategy for designing the relationship with their prospecting source.

Many small businesses, expect these relationships to develop over time, on their own, and naturally. And they might, but what if they don’t? It’s a chance that we challenge you not to take. Instead your business needs to design a strategy to create better relationships with quality prospecting sources.

What are most businesses missing when it comes to prospecting sources?

• An understanding of who should be a prospecting source. We often see prospecting sources that have conflicts of interest or who know a lot of people, but not your target demographics. Your sources should be profiled just like you do your customer target markets.
   
• Scheduled time for contacting the source. You hear us say it all the time. If it’s not scheduled it won’t happen. There’s already too much to do. If you work in a small business chances are you don’t have a lot of spare time. Block recurring time in your calendar to invest to contact prospecting sources.
   
• A plan for how to nurture the sources. You can’t expect your sources to work like slot machines spitting our leads. The world doesn’t often work this way. Instead you need to add value to the prospect source and encourage them to send you leads. We call this nurturing. Simply put, you can’t take leads out of a relationship that you have not built. Yet, most businesses don’t have a great plan for how to nurture a prospecting source so it goes undone.

If you want more leads from a prospecting source you must design your business to create and nurture the source. It can be done. And yes, you can wait for it to develop slowly and over time, if it does at all. Or, you can contact us to put in place a plan for identifying and nurturing your prospecting sources.