A few years ago, I met one of the best known 'sales experts' in the UK. He had authored several books, and provided motivational training for blue-chip companies in a career spanning decades. If you've worked in the sales world for any time, you have almost certainly heard of him. Now in the 'golden years' of his career, he could sit back and let the opportunities come to him, couldn't he? Actually no.
"We never kept a database, Bernadette" he privately confessed to me. So at great expense he had to hire and manage a sales team to set appointments for him. If he had cultivated a list over the years, he would have had prospective clients knocking on his door. "But my business is different!" Ok, so you're a consultant - and you only work with 3-4 large clients each year. Surely you don't need a list of 1,000 do you? Maybe not, but any list will give you huge leverage.
If you run a training course, you could offer 'tips' to attendees, which you mail, or email after the training. Make sure you keep in touch because even though they may not have buying authority right now, some of those attendees will get promoted, some will move to other departments, some of them will move to different companies, or even different industries.
Several business opportunities have come to me this way over the years. Or you're a massage therapist - and you can only see 12 clients a week, so you think you don't need to have a huge list either. No therapist who has been in business for more than 2 years should ever have an empty appointment book. Just this week I heard the sad tale of an experienced complementary therapist who had worked with over 1,000 clients. Business had mainly come her way via word of mouth and referral. But then, for a variety of reasons, she had to stop working with clients for a couple of months and had lost momentum.Now she was struggling to re-establish her client base to its previous levels.
"Well, why not send a mailer to your past clients," was the advice. "Ah", she replied, "I didn't actually keep a list of addresses of my clients". So she was basically starting from scratch all over again. This sounds so obvious, but you would be surprised just how many people I have seen make this fundamental marketing mistake.
Keep a list of all your past clients, and if you come up to a lean period, you can simply send a mailer to them. It doesn't have to be a hard sell, just a simple reminder that you're available, and perhaps a special offer. I guarantee you will get a response from people who have been meaning to call you for weeks or months, but never got around to it - until you contacted them.
Action Steps
1. Commit to collecting names and contact details of every single person who expresses an interest in your business. Look at every current activity you do to market your business and make sure that there is a way of capturing details of people - even if they're not ready to buy right away.
2. Follow up and stay in touch. Yes, I know you're really busy and don't have time to follow up with everyone, but there are ways of following up with people that don't have to be a huge drain on your time or money. An email newsletter is a cost effective way to stay in touch with thousands of people. Even monthly or quarterly mailers or postcards would be better than nothing at all.
3. Stop trying to be perfect. Some sort of name capture and follow up is better than nothing at all, and you can always tweak and adjust your follow up messages as you go along (that's what I do).
4. Start measuring success differently. Most people measure their business results in terms of sales and profits. I recommend that you also add 'size of the list' to your success measurement - as it can help you plan for future sales and profits too.
5. Commit to building and cultivating a prospect list. Put 'growing your list' to the top of your priorities and you'll be surprised at the results you can achieve.
Discover the Do's and Dont's of competitive intelligence.
Collecting information about your competitors makes good business sense. However, you must do so in an ethical and reasonable way. Competitive intelligence from public sources, customers, and third parties can help businesses anticipate market opportunities, trends and competitive strengths and weaknesses.
These guidelines provide a step-by-step guide for acquiring the information you need without crossing the line.
1. Ask questions - If you come across or are offered competitive information and believe that it may be confidential or proprietary ask questions to find out how the information was obtained, or why it was made available.
2. Be ethical - How would you or your business react if you found out that your competitors were receiving the kind of information that you acquired? If you think that a particular way of gathering competitive intelligence may be unethical, you should assume that your competitors would view it the same way.
3. If it doesn't seem right, don't do it - If you're ever in doubt as to whether a source of information or contemplated technique of gathering information is proper or legal, you should contact your manager or attorney.
4. Breaking the law has consequences - If you improperly gather or use competitive information, you can be disciplined or terminated, and you could face criminal and civil penalties. Breaking the law can also result in adverse publicity to your company. Think about how you'd feel if your actions were publicly disclosed on the front page of a newspaper.
5. Legitimate sources of competitive information include:
Public sources. You may gather information about your competitors from public sources such as:
Newspapers, magazines, other published articles and television programs
Advertisements and brochures intended for public distribution
Information freely available on the Internet and online research services
Public filings made with governmental or regulatory authorities, such as SEC reports, patent filings and litigation records
Analyst reports
Industry surveys or reports
Public presentations given by competitors at trade shows and conferences
Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and similar requests from governmental or regulatory agencies
Conversations with customers. Talking with customers is essential. The more you know about your customers and their businesses, the better you can meet their needs. However, you shouldn't contact customers for the purpose of obtaining confidential information about a competitor. Customers may disclose information about a competitor's products or pricing, so long as the information is not confidential.
Hiring third parties to obtain information. Sometimes company's hire third parties to help us gather competitive intelligence and information about the market for products and services. Third parties are subject to the same standards of behavior that you abide by, so you should assume that if we can't do it directly, you can't hire someone else to do it.
hird parties conducting focus groups or interviews with a competitor's suppliers or customers generally don't have to identify you as their client, so long as they identify themselves and their company. While a third party doesn't have to disclose the purpose of the focus group or interview, the third party shouldn't intentionally misrepresent the purpose.
A few of your competitors may have informed you that you cannot subscribe for their products and services. In these cases, you should not hire third parties to access the competitor's products or services. However, absent knowledge that a competitor would have barred or prohibited your access, you may engage a third party to subscribe to the product or service.
Keep in mind that your company can sometimes be legally responsible for damages or losses caused by a third party if you authorized or appear to have authorized any illegal actions. This can be the case even if you don't issue direct instructions to the third party, but know of the third party's likely conduct and "turn a blind eye".
If you engage a third party to gather competitive information, you should have the third party confirm that it is aware of, and agrees to abide by, applicable laws related to competitive intelligence.
Some types of information gathering, however, can violate the law or may be considered unethical. Some examples Include:
New Hires. What you can and can't ask former employees of competitors.
ou shouldn't ask or encourage employees who previously worked for a competitor to divulge confidential or proprietary information about the competitor, such as specific details about a competitor's operations and intentions, including pricing, future plans and forecasts which may have been considered confidential or proprietary by a competitor.
If you previously worked for a competitor, you shouldn't disclose information about your former employer that you believe is confidential or proprietary, or bring any of this information into your office.
However, you may discuss items of a general nature with an employee who previously worked for a competitor including anything that's a matter of public record or that wasn't treated by the employer as confidential.
Misrepresenting your identity. You shouldn't misrepresent your identity in order to obtain competitive information, if the person you're seeking information from would not ordinarily give you the information if they knew your true identity. This can be considered fraud. For example:
You shouldn't contact a competitor, posing as a customer, student, private research firm or potential vendor/supplier, to find out information.
When providing information in order to gain access to a competitor's website, you should answer all required blanks accurately, but you don't have to fill in blanks that are not required.
Stealing information.
You shouldn't attempt to acquire a competitor's confidential or proprietary information through illegal means, such as theft, spying or hacking.
You shouldn't perform any surveillance or monitoring of competitors outside of public places or engage in any form of electronic eavesdropping. However, if you're sitting on an airplane or are at an industry conference and happen to overhear a competitor discussing a confidential matter in the row ahead of you, the competitor likely has no reasonable expectation of privacy.
Giving gifts for confidential or proprietary information. In gathering competitive intelligence, you should not give entertainment, gifts, favors or gratuities to induce someone to provide you with information that's confidential or proprietary. You may, however, pay third parties for competitive intelligence that's derived from legitimate sources.
Anonymous packages containing confidential information. If you receive anonymous submissions of competitive information you shouldn't distribute or use the information.
Information marked "Confidential." etc. You shouldn't use or purchase information belonging to a competitor that is marked "confidential" or "proprietary."
Offers to access competitors' products and services. If you're offered access to a competitor's product or service by a customer, friend or other person, and you ordinarily would not be able to access the product or service on your own, you should decline the offer.
Misplaced or unattended confidential information. You shouldn't use confidential information belonging to a competitor that is accidentally misplaced or left unattended.
Dumpster diving. This is inappropriate and it may also be illegal.
Competitive bid information. You shouldn't seek or use information that you may receive about a competitor's bid if you're involved in bidding, especially on government contracts. However, you are free to use information that is disclosed by the government, publicly available or retrievable pursuant to a FOIA or other similar request.
Information offered in business pitches. If a customer offers competitive information to us during a business pitch, we should understand that the customer may owe a confidentiality obligation to our competitors who are also pitching for the business. As such, we should generally decline to receive information under these circumstances. However, if we are being told something very general or high-level, it may be appropriate for us to use this information in our bid and in our larger business strategy.
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