Qualifying Your Prospects

Over the last 18 months or so I’ve been conducting a little experiment.

To be more clear my experiment is simply implementation of marketing knowledge I’ve learned and continue to learn. See that’s what implementation is really about. You learn something, you see something and you ask…

“How does that apply to my business?” Then you say – “This is how I will apply this.” Then, you actually apply it – get feedback and then make adjustments.

What I’ve learned is “Qualifying Your Prospects” is so important. Developing steps and procedures. Not in a boring or beauracratic way, but just in a fun or simple way.

Why do you need steps and systems? Because if you don’t have them – by default you will end up taking the steps and going through the system out-lined and created by others.

Sometimes you’d be surprised how just about any additional step creates a better prospect too.

Example…

I do a good bit of speaking. Embracing speaking oppurtunities is my M-O because the more you do it the better you get. You can apply new ideas, gather feedback and then adjust!

An audience that qualifies themselves VS one that is not required to…

In the world of speaking you have two basic audiences.

An audience who paid and an audience who doesn’t pay. Yea – yea I know “they all have to pay with their time” – whatever! I’m talking about money changing hands. The audience is either paying to be at an event or seminar or getting it for free because some organization they belong to put on the event and brought in the speaker.

Here’s what I’ve found…

In cases where I spoke at events where attendees paid to be there things are different. Many of the attendees traveled a great distance by plane or car. Most would conclude, these people would be less receptive. After all, they just had to pay for the event. They had to pay for travel, hotel rooms, etc. “There’s no way they’re also going to buy what you are selling!” Not the case!

What I have found is attendees who qualify themselves by taking those steps are much better prospects. Much better than those who simply head over to an event put on by the organization they belong to. Perhaps it is the fact that those who take those steps and qualify themselves are the kind of people who take action.

Now, you might not be doing speaking and offering products and services to audiences but the fact remains you still have to set up a few steps in your business.

Example. We rarely take on web re-design and new internet marketing clients unless we first run them through our 48 Point Inspection to see where they stand.