More Clients TV
A Powerful Approach to Lead Generation That We Almost All Overlook
When we talk about lead generation we normally mean potential clients we've not met or interacted with before.
What we tend to forget is the people we already know, but we're not treating like leads.
In particular, there are two categories of people who make exceptional leads that we tend to overlook.
The first is ex-clients. The second is “dropped prospects”.
Both are great prospects because we've already built up credibility and trust with them.
The challenge is we've usually dropped out of touch and we don't know how to get back in contact and start talking about working together without seeming desperate or pushy or otherwise put them off.
In this video, I show you an approach for reconnecting that will get potential clients enthusiastic about speaking with you. And it will allow you to smoothly transition to talking about working together.
It takes work. But it's worth it.
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Video Transcript
Hi – it’s Ian here – welcome to another episode of More Clients TV.
In the last few weeks, we’ve been focusing on Lead Generation. And this week I'm going to talk about a very powerful way of generating leads that most of us overlook.
I'll reveal all after the swoosh.
So, when we talk about lead generation normally, we're talking about potential clients we've not met or interacted with before.
What we tend to forget is the people we already know, but we're not treating like leads.
In particular, there are two categories of people who make exceptional leads that we tend to overlook.
The first is ex-clients.
What typically happens with clients is we establish great relationships when we're working with them. But then when we move on and there are no immediate opportunities we tend to drop out of touch as we focus on our next clients and prospects.
Now, of course, six months or nine months or a year later there may well be significant opportunities with that same client. But by then we won't be top of mind and we can't rely on them giving us a call if they need us.
The second category is dropped prospects.
Dropped prospects are potential clients who you came close to working with, but for one reason or another it didn't quite come off. Maybe the timing wasn't right or their priorities changed or they may have chosen to work with someone else.
What we typically do here is we assume that because our work with them didn't go ahead, then we're never going to work with them. But again, that's a bad assumption. Maybe the timing wasn't right then, but it could be now. Or the issue we were talking about may have become a bigger priority or maybe the supplier they initially chose didn’t work out. Or there might just be a different opportunity for us.
The huge bonus with ex-clients and dropped prospects is you've already built up a significant amount of credibility and trust. For ex-clients it was enough for them to hire you and I'm going to assume you did a good job so it should be even higher.
For dropped prospects, they might not have hired you, but you certainly built up enough credibility and trust for them to seriously consider you.
So in both cases, you've got much less distance to go before they're ready to buy than if you were talking to a brand new lead who didn't know you at all.
The challenge though is that getting back in touch to talk about opportunities often doesn't feel very comfortable. There's only so many times you can knock on their door and ask if they have anything for you before they stop taking your calls.
The answer is to stop asking and start giving.
What that means is you use the same strategy of giving value in advance that you would use to attract a cold prospect, but you do it with your warm ex-clients and dropped prospects.
The difference is you don't need to try to collect email addresses or anything like that because you're already in contact. And you can afford to invest more per person because you know they have a high probability of turning into clients.
So usually the best way of getting back in touch and offering value in advance to these higher value prospects is to offer them some kind of presentation or discussion on a topic they're going to find valuable that could lead to opportunities for work for you if it turns out to be an area they need to improve in or make some changes in.
So that could be a discussion around industry trends affecting them in an area you're an expert in. It could be some benchmarking you've done on an important topic for them or it could be some case studies of how some of your clients have achieved what they want to achieve. Anything you can share with them really that's valuable…
…but you will find that you get a much better response when you offer to share hard data and external, objective information.
Offering to discuss with them some ideas you've had about improving customer service, for example, is nowhere near as strong as offering to share some benchmarking you've done on customer service best practices in the top 10 companies in their sector.
The benchmarking just sounds much more concrete and valuable. Something you couldn’t just make up on the spot or try to wing it.
And from your perspective, all your competitors could offer to share some ideas – but it's very likely that no one else has done the work to compile the benchmarking or create an industry report. So you’ll really stand out.
So for selected ex-clients and dropped prospects offering some kind of high value briefing like this is a fantastic way of getting back in touch, adding value, and getting into a meaty discussion with a potential client where you demonstrate expertise and talk about an area where they might well need help. From there it's a really easy transition to talking about working together.
And worst case – even if they don't agree to the meeting you'll have raised your credibility and have been seen to be adding value.
So if you target high value clients and you're willing to invest in creating a high value briefing it can pay real dividends. I would give it serious consideration.
That's it for this week – I'll see you next week on another episode of more clients TV.
Cheers!
Ian Brodie
https://www.ianbrodie.comIan Brodie is the best-selling author of Email Persuasion and the creator of Unsnooze Your Inbox - *the* guide to crafting engaging emails and newsletters that captivate your audience, build authority and generate more sales.