What’s the Best Way to Prospect
What’s the best way to prospect? It’s a question I have been asked dozens of times over the past two decades.
Frankly, the best way to prospect is to grow your current clients’ scope of work.
- They know you.
- They are (hopefully) more than satisfied with the input, output, and outcome of your work.
- They want to continue growing a successful relationship with you.
Second, ask your current clients to complete two question questionnaire for a net promoter score, and don’t be afraid to ask them on occasion if they would be willing to refer you to colleagues of their own who may be in need of your services.
Of course, the common NPS question is: “How likely is it that you would recommend our agency to a friend or colleague?” But there are a handful of alternative questions to consider adding one additional question for more insights:
- What is lacking in your experience with our agency?
- How can we improve your relationship with our agency team?
- Which services do you value most?
- What do you like most/least about our agency offerings?
- What is the one thing we could do to make you more satisfied?
Now – what about cold prospecting? I recently heard the best response from a marketing executive at Maserati when it comes to agencies prospecting. His response was very insightful. “I am responsible for my brand. I am responsible for protecting it and making sure it succeeds. Agencies that are reaching out with a cold email or call are considered liabilities.”
So… what is the best way to turn cold prospects into warm leads? There’s no easy way around it, you need to build trust. Trust takes time. Trust takes effort. Trust takes sharing insights, ideas, relevant experience. But it’s not only sharing thought leadership via email. Comment on articles that you believe the prospect would read. Get involved in Twitter chats or LinkedIn forums to build rapport. And the best way to build trust faster is to prospect brands that you have an absolute die-hard passion for personally… when you do, it simply shows that you care! And in a time of uncertainty and unpredictability like now, caring is key.
Once a prospect expresses even a preliminary level of interest in your outreach, you need to continue engaging and re-engaging without stalking. Valuable information around the category; changing consumer; shifts in e-commerce; trends shaping behavior or purchase patterns are all helpful as long as you do not sell. Let me repeat that… do not sell. The idea is to help the prospect by offering some thinking at no charge but leaving them wanting more. Now, you’ve built a level of trust with these prospects and they’re likely to permit you to re-engage allowing a relationship to begin and for you to act as a resource that will eventually turn into more at the right time.
So what is the best way to prospect? Prospecting is a marathon, not a sprint. Period. End.
