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As a business consultant I like to help others in business develop important skill sets. Although, as of late, most of my business in this arena has come from evaluating the training programs of others for my clients. Truthfully, a great deal of these programs are not very good. I think that they know this, which explains the high amount of fluff and splash that I end up seeing in them. Then again, maybe it is because too many companies assume their employees need the 101 level training (which may explain why my training doesn’t get as many takers as it is decidedly NOT 101 level.) So, here is the short-short version of Getting New Clients Graduate School Level.

That Is All There Is

There are exactly four ways to get new clients.

1) Cold Calling

2) Mail – Regular Mail and Email

3) Networking – Online and Offline

4) Reverse Cold Calling

That’s it. Now that we are focused, let’s break it down a little bit before moving onto the How and Why.

1) Cold Calling – Don’t let a narrow definition throw you off. Cold Calling is any form of contacting someone with whom you have no previous relationship in an effort to get a conversation with them so you can get something from them (a sale, a recommendation). Note the difference between Mail. With Mail, your goal is not to get a conversation, it is to get someone to respond to your “Call To Action,” which may include a phone call, but notice the difference between trying to “speak” with Mr. Jones even if that would be electronically. (Yes, you could argue with me here, but let’s skip that for the time being. If your goal is a two-way communication with a stranger, then it’s cold calling.)

2) Mail – Whether electronic or old-fashion paper or postcard or gift, the goal of mail is to provoke the receiver of your mail into taking some sort of action that YOU REQUEST. Your mail is a failure before you send it if it does not contain a request (whether explicit or implicit.)

There was a great post here on JDsBlog about Sales Letters.

3) Networking – When you establish contacts with the ultimate goal of sales, but with the original goal of simply creating a favorable association with another person or company then you are networking. Along with the age old techniques of Rotary, or Elks Club, are online variations including email dialogs, forum participation, social networking sites and the like. The major difference between networking and the first two techniques is the Time To Sale which can be days, weeks, months, or never and your networking can still be considered successful.

4) Referrals – When satisfied customers recommend you to their friends and family, you not only have your best shot at acquiring a new customer or client, but you also receive a great compliment. Many marketing and sales training programs focus here and for good reason. However, many try to ignore the white elephant: You cannot get referrals until you have clients. Shoot for a referral based business, but do not be blinded by the fact that this cannot be step 1.

5) Reverse Cold Calling – Once upon a time in a land far far away, I worked for a major wire house. A hands off, light management style was coupled with the expectation that you build your own client list with no help from the firm other than what it provided in the way of name recognition and brand value. They never once used the words: cold calling. Yet, there we were, those of us hired in the last year sitting in a conference room or in our cubicles calling doctors, lawyers, business owners, executives or anyone else we thought might have money. One day while I was reading the newspaper a colleague asked what I was doing and I joked that I was “Reverse Cold Calling.” I’ve loved the idea ever since.

Normal Cold Calling is when you call someone you’ve never done business with in order to ask for their business. Reverse Cold Calling is when someone else calls you in order to offer you their business. Reverse Cold Calling is the holy grail of marketing and sales. You sit at your desk and the customers come to you. This technique works far better in some businesses than others. When evaluating this technique, think about the Phone Book. There are some things people commonly look for this way (plumbers, lawn care, pizza, hair care). There are some things for which just looking in the phone book is ludicrous (doctors, financial planners, engineers). However, with the right techniques you can develop this most blessed method of client acquisition for your business.

Missing Anything?

If you think in broad terms, you’ll notice that pretty much any direct activity you can think of to generate new clients falls into one of these categories. (Advertising is indirect activity.) All that time you spend at the Chamber of Commerce meetings? Networking. Emailing other bloggers to mention or link to your blog? Cold Calling. Spending hours on Facebook? Networking. Mailing invitations to a seminar? Mail. Taking a client and three of his friends golfing? Referrals.

Next we’ll go into each of these five methods and how to use them. Most importantly we’ll look at how to develop them and where they fit in with your business. We’ll start with the dreaded cold calling in the next post.

Can you think of other direct action activities that you use to generate clients?

Do you have a favorite method or technique?

Email me or leave a comment and we’ll incorporate your ideas.