No Sales Pipeline, No Sales

Having a vibrant sales pipeline is key to your success as a consultant. You constantly need to have new prospects at various stages of the pipeline so that you continue to generate revenues for your business on a continuous basis. How do you obtain new projects and prospects? That is the subject of this post.

1.       Do Your Research – If you have a clearly defined target market, you can use internet searches or social media searches to start building a prospect list. Once you have built the list, you can start to build the relationship with direct contact methods such as email or social media drip campaigns.

2.       Reconnect with Former Clients – You have probably been consulting for a significant period of time and you have a host of clients that you use to work with. For one reason or another, you are no longer actively engaged in providing services to this client. Reaching out to these former clients, who already understand the value you bring and the quality of your service offering, can be a great source for new projects.

3.       Mining your Current Clients – Developing new relationships through research and drip campaigns is time consuming and expensive. Deepening your relationship with a current client by expanding your scope of services is not time consuming or expensive because these opportunities will naturally arise out of your current relationship if you are constantly looking for ways to deliver new value to clients that already know you and the value your bring.

4.       Referrals from Current Clients – The opportunity to build new relationships through existing client relationships is there if you are willing to ask. Simply letting your clients know that you are looking to deliver similar value to business owners or consumers in their network is a great place to look for new prospects.

5.       Referrals from Social Media Connections –  If you have actively sought to build online and offline relationships with your social media connections, you should be in a position where you can ask them to introduce you to prospects that fit your clearly defined target market.

6.       Referrals from Networking Connections – Keep apprised of who your networking connections want to meet and inform your networking connections of who you are looking to meet on a regular and continuous basis.

7.       Ask your Friends and Family – No one cares for you more than your friends and family and they want to see you succeed. Let them know who you are looking to meet on a periodic basis. You never know who they may know unless you ask.

8.       Referrals from Prospects – Most consultants work from the proposition that you do not ask for a referral from a client until you have completed a substantial portion of your work for them. I am aware of one real estate firm that will ask for the referrals up front so that they can spend more time servicing the client and less time marketing.

These tips should help you brainstorm about methods for developing your sales pipeline. Every method may not be for you. But, picking the right methods for you and applying them on a consistent basis will help you develop a more consistent sales pipeline. If you wish to set up a free one hour consultation on how to incorporate these methods into your practice, please connect with me on LinkedIn, email me at bkerrigan@whcpa.com, or call me at 774-306-6135