100 prospects at a time

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Some of my clients are following a good approach for marketing to local businesses. Here’s what you do:

1. Choose 100 businesses within your target market. Example: dental practices.

2. Send those 100 businesses a series of educational letters every couple of weeks.

3. Visit them live every week or two to say hello and drop off interesting articles, education, free advice about their web site, and do your best to establish rapport without being annoying. This can work if you approach it as nurturing a relationship in your community rather than making a one-time pitch. You can also ask for advice about your products, marketing approaches, associations to join, etc.

4. Try to offer something simple to show what you can do.

5. As businesses start looking like good prospects or no go’s, replace the no go’s with new businesses in your target market. Always have 100 prospects.

6. Support the above by being visible to this target market via association meetings, research, etc.

Many of you will absolutely hate the above strategy. That’s okay. It’s not for everyone. It’s hard work, and you will face lots of rejection (unless you focus on nurturing relationships).

All I can say is that it is getting results for lots of people, and that few of their competitors are willing to invest the time and sweat to do the same. Plus, it gets easier after the first few rounds, once it becomes habitual.

Andrew NeitlichAndrew Neitlich
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