Thanks for your replies to Tuesday’s email about making business development easy.
If I could summarize the replies, they’d (collectively) say,
Once I’m “in the room” with a buyer, I’m golden – but how do I get “in the room”? How do I find more people who could hire me?
1. Who are the “people who can hire you?”
First, you need to know who you are selling to.
I know this is obvious, but so many people can’t tell me who this is!
Here are some target market statements I pulled off of random agency websites:
- We create and design websites for the insurance, real estate, and athletic sectors.
- We’re search marketing specialists.
- We help marketing leaders of mission-driven brands make a greater impact through purposeful creative.
Do any of those agencies sound like they know their ideal client? Could they identify them if they saw a LinkedIn profile?
Narrow positioning makes it possible to find people who can hire you!
2. Where do they “hang out”?
Once you know who you are looking for, you can figure out where they hang out!
How? Ask them!
Call your clients and ask them, “When you have a question about [insert something you do for clients], where do you go? Who do you ask?”
That used to be industry groups, but today it’s just as often a slack/discord channel, social site or group, or email list.
3. Answer their questions
Go to the place where the people that can hire you, hang out and answer their questions!
You don’t have to write a blog post, just a few sentences, then maybe DM them and offer to get on the phone if they want to learn more…
4. Slow down; it might take time to develop a relationship
This doesn’t happen in 5 minutes. (Though one agency owner got connected to a potential client the first day he tried this!) It might take some time to build trust and make connections.
But do it every day for a month, and I bet you’ll start having more conversations.
Would this work for you? Hit reply and tell me why not or where you’re stuck and we can talk about getting you UNstuck!
