Who are your best potential clients?

The ones you should be focusing your time on if you want to maximise your chances of winning new business in the near-term?

Many people would say it's “hot prospects” – people who are ready to buy.

Not you, of course. I'm sure you know that the problem with hot prospects is that they may be ready to buy…just not from you. You haven't built up enough credibility and trust yet.

But as a result of this blind faith that there are perfect prospects out there if only we could find them, we end up spending all of our marketing time and energy on tactics that focus on strangers.

We learn the massively complex rules behind Facebook Ads, spend a small fortune trying to out-compete the zillions of other people running ads (most of whom are rather more experienced at it than us). 

And we end up with prospects who don't know us well enough to buy from us yet.

Now there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. You're building your pipeline for the future.

But if you want to prioritise winning new work in the near term, I've found time and time again that the best place to look is with the people who already know you.

The people you've already built credibility and trust with.

Not all of them are ready to buy – but those that are will favour you.

Unfortunately, we typically make 5 killer assumptions that blind us to the huge opportunities from our current contacts.

The first is that we assume that if they needed our help, they'd ask.

Sure, some might. But for most clients, it's tough enough keeping track of their own business issues or the latest misdemeanours their kids have committed at school. They're not spending their time memorising all your capabilities and constantly wondering how you could help them.

The second assumption we make is that our ex-clients don't need us any more.

We worked with them a year ago, the project was a success. Therefore they don't need any more help.

No, no, no, no, no.

How many successful projects have setbacks? How often do changes that clients implement slip back? Or perhaps they now want to move on to the next level? Or they need to do something similar in a different part of their business? Or something different but well within your capabilities?

Don't assume. Check.

The third assumption is that our current clients don't need anything more from us. 

Of course, none of us wants to be pushy and sneakily creep the scope of our work with them.

But have you looked around at their organisation to see the other ways you could help them? Things that would bring big benefits to them and complement the work you're already doing?

The fourth assumption is that dropped prospects will never work with us.  

Dropped prospects are potential clients you talked to about working together but for one reason or another it never quite came off.

We usually assume they chose someone else and decided we weren't for them.

But very often what really happened was their budget was cut. Or other priorities took over. Or we came a very close second for reasons that might change over time.

More often than not they'd be very happy to work with you on a different opportunity. Or even the same one now things have changed.

The fifth assumption is a real killer. We assume that getting back in touch with these contacts would feel painful, pushy and somehow icky. 

We worry we'll come across as desperate if we call that ex-client up to ask how things are going. We worry that our current client will think we're being too pushy if we start asking about other areas we could help them with.

So we don't.

But it doesn't have to be that way – if you lead with value when you get back in touch.