How many times have you or the people you hire to sell your stuff either said or thought these words?  “I hate prospecting!”  Probably more than once.  Rather than dealing with the frustration overcome the challenge so you can say, “I love prospecting for sales leads!”

The problem stems from the fact that most people approach sales prospecting from the perspective of trying to find people to buy your stuff.  When you should be focused on making your business FINDABLE by the people most likely to buy your stuff.  Once you flip that paradigm you’ll love prospecting.

Here’s why prospecting is so hard when it shouldn’t be.  You can’t effectively answer these questions:

1. Who are the people most likely to have both the desire and the means to buy your stuff?
2. What are those people already looking for?
3. Where do the people most likely to buy your stuff gather?
4. Where can you interact with and engage those potential buyers?
5. When can you interact and engage with those people?
6. Why do the people most likely to buy your stuff want to connect with you?
7. How do they perceive getting what they want?
8. How will you develop a relationship with the people most likely to buy your stuff?
9. How will you transform strangers into buyers?

In case you didn’t notice the information you need to develop for your business is the same information a journalist would require to write an article about your business… Who, What, Where, When, Why, and How.

Don’t just answer these questions based on logic and features.  You have to get to the driving emotional motivator that gets people who would rather ignore you and do nothing to act.  You need a message that drives people out of their do nothing zombie state and transforms them into alert eager to act buyers.

The most important question is the first question.  Answer that question and then do your homework and learn as much as you can about those potential buyers so you can effectively answer the remaining questions.

What’s one of the biggest challenges you face? 

Well, if you’re like most business owners, entrepreneurs, and sales professionals one of your biggest challenges is getting enough prospects to talk to… aka leads.  Plus you have little or no money allocated to or for developing those prospects.  And that means your sales future looks pretty bleak.

photo credit: raulsantosdelacamara

Many find their sales funnel as barren as this desert!

 Retailers have it so Easy…

Don’t you kind of envy retailers?  After all they have ready buyers coming to them.  Retailers get foot traffic from people who are either:

• Looking to buy in the future
• Ready to buy right now

They have real prospects walking right in their front door eager to whip out their wallets and SPEND.  Man, if only you could have it that easy…

You can have it that Easy Too!

When do most people seek out what they want?

• When they know what they want
• When they understand what they get
• When they know what getting that does for them
• When they perceive the value of getting what they want as greater than the cost of getting it

When a potential buyer knows all those things they are a red hot can’t wait to drop my dime buyer.  The secret to attracting those red hot buyers is matching your message to what they already want… to what they’re already looking for.  When you do that you can create a steady stream of hot prospects beating a path to your door.

Newspapers are Dinosaurs and… What that Means for You

Now this might seem a little off track, but if you’ll bear with me here I’ll make it all crystal clear.  Print newspapers are in big trouble.  Their revenue is drying up.

Newspapers have never made their money from subscribers.  Nope, subscribers are just a demographic head count.  Newspapers make their money from advertisers.  But advertisers won’t spend their advertising dollars in a medium that can’t produce a return on their investment.

Now I don’t just mean the regular ads you see throughout the paper.  I also mean the dollars that come in from classified ads.  Once upon a time those lowly classified ads generated over 20 billion dollars for the newspaper industry.  But no more.

So where did all those classified ads go if they aren’t in print newspapers anymore?  Those ads have relocated to online classified ads websites like Craigslist.  There are two big reasons this information is important to you.

First, where are the people most likely to buy your stuff?  Answer - one of the easiest no cost ways to help the right people find YOU is through online classified ads websites.   Jacqui Cheng reports newspaper revenue from classified ads has been cut in half, yet online ads are on the rise.  

Second, online classified ad websites are a great way for you to get no cost high quality leads coming directly to you.  Plus it’s easy to do.  Craigslist.org is the most popular classified ads website in the U.S.  You can use this website to get local leads coming to you… and you can do it for free.  

All you need to do is:

• setup an account
• pick your state
• pick a city
• pick a category to place an ad
• write the ad
• link back to your website
• capture lead info in exchange for something they want

Before you go racing off to Craigslist or any other classified ads website though you need to get ready.  Here are the things you need to do to prepare for success:

• Read this report from the PEW Internet & American Life Project
• Pick a demographic group most likely to buy your stuff
• Write an ad that focuses on what they want
• Include an offer they can’t refuse
• Link back to your lead generation website

And that’s it!

A powerful way to get the people most likely to buy your stuff to contact you.  A powerful way to develop a steady stream of qualified potential buyers connecting with you.  A powerful way to keep your marketing and sale funnel full so you never have to wonder where you’ll find your next prospect.

For more information about how to get real prospects contacting you read here… TPISC Report.