Prospecting Perils

For the first time in 4 years, I've been working to build a list of prospective clients. Mary Jane Copps, aka The Phone Lady, asked me to describe my target market for her. That was easy to do when we were sitting in Starbucks enjoying lattes. I have a pretty clear picture of my ideal client – I’m fortunate to have several of them already.

Translating that description into a prospecting list has turned out to be more of a challenge than I anticipated.

First, I decided to take my own advice and check out who’s been reading my newsletter. Because my own newsletter isn’t about what I do though, it isn't easy to identify readers who might be interested in starting a newsletter just by looking at who’s opening it.

On to LinkedIn... After a little grunting and groaning about the search process, I was able to make some progress, but not as much or as easy as I had imagined.

There are 2 lessons I've re-learned through this venture:
  1. It’s easy to give out and read advice about prospecting – less easy to translate it into action steps that get results.
  2. I have to be focused because I get attracted to ‘shiny things’. For me, that’s those types of businesses that have a visual brand, like veterinarians with photos of cute kitties, or art galleries with wonderful creative pieces to share, or clothing and accessories I’d like to own. None of these fit nicely into my defined ideal client profile, but what fun! And I would certainly not turn them away.
I've decided to start being on the lookout for prospective clients more actively on a daily basis, and to keep a running list. I suspect that it will be a higher quality list if I make it part of my daily routine.

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originally published in Work Better, Not Harder July 15, 2014

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