Be prepared

- The final thing, before I tell you how to find your prospects, is a piece of preparation you must do. Before we go start looking for the great leads, we need to first define what a great lead is. It sounds stupid, but you'd be amazed how many people go to market and sell with no real idea of who they want to sell to. If you want to sell to leads that are too small all or can't afford your product, or you don't need your product then you are wasting your time. Equally, if you sell to leads that are too big or consider your products cheap or low quality when they want high quality, then you're also wasting your time. So we need to set parameters in both directions the minimum requirement and the maximum requirement. And there isn't a wrong answer here. It's okay to want big customers and it's okay to want small. It's okay to target the premium market and it's okay to target the commodity market. What you need to decide is what matters to you. When I used to sell IT solutions, I'd want to know, use account, business turnover, and location, because those mattered. If there were too few users then our business model didn't fit. And if there were too many users then we couldn't handle them. If the turnover was too low, then they couldn't afford us. And if it was too high, then they'd probably have their own IT department internally. And then they had to be based a few hours drive to our office so that we could service them properly. Everything else was negotiable. They could be in any industry and they could have any management structure at all. They could sell any product and some were better than others, but those parameters weren't fixed. So start by defining what your parameters are for the businesses you're selling to regardless of individual. Does employee count matter? Does turnover matter? Does geography matter? Does management structure matter? Do they need to be in a certain sector? Do they need to provide a certain product? Do they need to have certain internal teams or have certain roles filled? And then once you've considered those, go one level lower. Now we're doing the same but for the in individuals you'll be targeting. Do they need to be decision makers? Do they need to be in a certain department or have a certain role? Do they need to have certain technical expertise? Whatever it is that you need, write that down. You'll be needing it throughout this course.