How to Prospect for New Customers

Start by Creating a Plan

As a business owner, you are the master of your destiny, and you’re excellent at what you do.  If someone asks you about your core business, you’ll be happy to provide detailed information.  But when asked to quantify how you’re finding new customers for your business, the conversation can take a vague and indefinite turn.  This happens because with many small businesses, sales and marketing often take a back seat to other priorities. Good intentions are there, but the actions fall between the cracks.  The question for today is how can one have a successful and thriving business without a plan for finding new customers for your business? Whether you know it or not, as a business owner you are responsible for actively promoting your business, and you’re the head of sales and marketing.  No matter what business you’re in, selling is critical to your company’s ability to grow and move forward.


If you build it, they will come… sounded great in the movies, and maybe that works for a while, in some cases.  In reality if you’re not dedicating resources to sales and marketing, your business is probably not going to make it very far.  To keep your business thriving, you will need a constant pipeline of sales transactions.  This means that you have to find ways to keep existing customers happy and returning, and new customers coming in the door. Here are some tips on creating a plan for finding new customers for your business. 

Your Job as Head Salesperson

Contrary to popular belief, being head salesperson for your company doesn’t mean that you’re always in front of people or on social media “selling” and talking about your products and services.  Your biggest sales job involves not only being great at your craft, but it also involves honing your skills in the art of listening and learning as much as possible about your customer’s needs.  It means that you’re in the business of building relationships with existing and potential customers as well as in the community.  And it also means that you’ll have plenty of opportunities to balance talking about what you do with ways you can help your customers, when the time is right. 


To locate new customers, you will need to answer a few initial questions. To start, who is your ideal customer? Take time to really work on this question.  Answer the who, what, when, where and how as it relates to this question.  These answers will go a long way towards guiding your business to the right audience.  What problems does your audience have? How can your business solve them?  If you sell to individuals, where do those individuals hang out in their spare time? Do they hang out online and if so where?  Do you have an online presence that addresses their issues? If so how can you reach your audience online? What organizations or community activities can you join to support these efforts?

If you sell to businesses, consider the department that is most likely to buy your products or services, and what individual or level of responsibility would be the one who makes the final purchasing decision.  If you’re not sure who those people are, be proactive and make some calls to find out! Then consider how that individual would normally find products or services like yours. What circles do they travel in? Who are they likely to listen to or where do they look when they want to buy a product or service? Find a way to put your information, or yourself, in their path.

The Key to Success

Planning is the first step in finding new customers. Without a plan you have no direction and without direction finding new customers will remain on your to-do list, but your goals will never see the light of day.  Plans, goals and objectives sound great and look great on paper.  But without action, the best plans are useless.  We’ll cover implementation in future articles…

For now, here are some action items to consider:

1. Create a plan that includes joining and contributing to a specific number of online and offline groups that will place you in the path of your audience.
2. Make sure your plan includes a specific number of emails, postcards, business cards, handwritten note cards, and brochures you will send each month to new and existing customers.
3. Sponsor an event or that will attract potential customer. We’ll talk about this in detail later in the series.
4. Educate customers about aspects of your business to bring in new business. ( Don’t be afraid to give something away (free service, raffle, auction, etc.) to draw in potential clients.
5. If you don’t have a blog, plan to start one and commit to a realistic number of posts each week.

Make sure your blog provides a way for customers to subscribe to your information.  These are just a few simple ideas to begin the process of finding new customers.

Keep in mind that sales often happen because potential customers hear about your products and services in several different ways and from several different sources.  The more often they are exposed to you and your message, the more likely they are to consider what you have to offer when they are ready to buy.




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