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Lesson Info

How to Approach Your Best Prospects

Lesson twenty two how to approach your best prospects right? So now we know who those living breathing people are. We have found five of them, maybe more. I'm going to tell you to find five but you may find twenty five that's. Okay, I give you permission to find twenty five. All right, but how are you going to approach these people? So this is a little flash back side slide where I'm reminding you that in session one in our ah segment about the marketing plan, I told you on tuesdays you're going to be doing prospecting, and I said that one of the main ways to do prospecting and to ken act we talked about connecting as an activity and which marketing tools support that particular activity. One of them is warm email prospecting and that's what I want to spend this lesson on kind of setting the foundation about warm email prospecting so that would when edgar india joins us on the screen, we will know what he's talking about. All right, so first I want to talk about why there's so much fea...

r to reach out to actual prospects. All right? And I'll give you a few of the things I've heard, but I would love to hear also from the chat room, please what is the problem with reaching out to people? Write again so much time invested perfecting your website, perfecting your business card whatever it is just so that you don't have to reach out to people that's what I see so of course we have a fear of rejection and what I would say about that actually is that mostly what people are afraid of? This kind of relates to another thing we were saying in session one about thes parental voices that we sometimes here and imagine our riel and in this case that someone is going to say to you what no we don't want you is that the fear is that the rich section we're talking about does that ever happen? I personally have never heard of that happening, which is not to say that everybody wants you right or that everybody is thrilled that you are reaching out to them. There may be some people who say you know what? I'm not a good prospect for you in fact, when I get those cold calls on my phone because I answer my phone when I can and I get someone who's trying to sell me something I don't hang up on them, I basically say I'm not a good prospect for you sorry you don't have to waste your time with me you should thank people who say no to you because they are helping you not waste your time on them all right? The other thing about fear of rejection is that really what actually happens is silence people don't respond that is not rejection and I have a whole lesson about what's happening when people aren't responding, we will get to that, but the reality is that most people are not actually rejected, so this fear of rejection is kind of bogus because it doesn't happen, so stop using it as an excuse please justin it's funny because I was a I would be on the street early on one of my career jobs was recruiting people for greenpeace and I learned that this more rejections I got, the more people that I got signed up so I think like to celebrate rejection is really important where you can get the more rejections you can get, the sooner you're going to be actually getting those clients for those people to sign up for green it's about the numbers right? You need to know how many rejections you need to get in order to get a yes hominy knows do you need to get a yes that's an important metric all right, here's another reason I hear people say they don't want to reach out, it takes too much time. I disagree if you have laid the groundwork if you have set up your system especially this warm email marketing system which we will talk about, but if you have really half on hour a day, we'll do it when I do my follow up on my prospecting half an hour day that's all I can afford that's all it takes number three there are too many ways to do this outreach it's true but that's not a very good excuse so you're gonna want to choose and focus on which way works best for you and for your prospects so why else why else is there so much fear to reach out anyone else in our studio audience please zane I guess it's just at the end of the day like you have to get out of your comfort zone and most people are just too comfortable for me I find uh you know I try to do one thing every day that kind of scares me and just that that gets me out of my comfort zone and all that was needed to things like prospecting and reaching out I love that philosophy and it's similar to something also that came up yesterday in one of the day before actually one of the other courses where someone said say yes to the things you would normally say no too and no to the things you would normally say yes too and that helps you grow and so this may be for a lot of people the thing that they usually say no to that they now need to start saying yes to and really just takes practice raina what can you add here I could add that well if you're trying to reach out to somebody who really matters if you really want the job it's not maybe so much rejection but maybe that's the way you approach them comes off wrong and you're missing your chance and then you don't have a chance to go back and do it better you never know you may have another chance I mean in a way that assumes that there really focused on you especially that initial outreach which they may not have even seen in the first place right you may not have made an impression you think you're so important if you will and reaching out to people and all they see is you but really the reality is maybe they didn't even see that message maybe they didn't even get that message so I think this idea of you really have to get the first impression right? I mean I easily to get it right is a good thing but all is not lost if you don't get it right and I really think actually one of the problems with this is that people is this um fantasy of perfection somehow that we can't make mistakes that we have to be perfect otherwise everything is messed up and actually I got a message this morning from someone who was watching yesterday who said to me it was so adorable and endearing when you forgot the name of your book it made you more human and I thought that's, right? I wasn't embarrassed about it. I just forgot the name of my book, and that happens. And so really we have to give ourselves permission to make these mistakes because I think it makes us more human to those people that we're trying to reach out tio, because otherwise you sound like a robot. Justin, what would you add? Um, I think I'm not just making that first call or that first email, but continuing to be the squeaky will that's scary because it's like, oh my my bugging them like what? And I guess the whole idea of the squeaky wheel gets the oil. Yeah, so for the worm is it the worm of the oil? You know, early bird gets the worm I s o I think just like the sustained effort is challenging and and what? How people perceive you or your effort or if there's the sustained effort speaks volumes, the sustained effort says I'm really interested in working with you. I'm very enthusiastic about the possibilities of what we can do together. The sustained effort says we are a great fit and that's why I keep reaching out to you that's, why I'm persistent. I defy this idea of I'm bothering you they don't focus on that that's not and again as I said yesterday when people when I have reached out in a persistent way to people who expressed interest initially they thank me for staying on top of it they thank me because when they're ready they're ready enough said all right what's happening in the chat room for people who I don't find this rejection seems to be the most the most popular reason why people what's holding people back our photography said they don't they don't want to appear to be desperate um you know actually let me say something about that because I hear that a lot also and I don't think that's true either it depends on how you approach people if you approach with desperation it will be perceived and if you don't approach with desperation, then it won't be perceived just the fact that you're approaching doesn't indicate desperation and the way to not approach with desperation is toe have many irons in the fire because then you don't need any particular one that is the solution there's one I've just lost lightly it will come back to me but other people yes saying they is the rejection they don't bother people glamour coach said that uh I thought, well, I think you just said that justin do people are frightened divers have been pestering you testing wants to add to that well, it's just there's a lot of you could have so many stories in your head around why somebody hasn't responded please yeah, I'm working on a podcast and I have just kept calling this person and she said, oh, I'm glad you've kept calling because I have just not been feeling well and I am now and I knew you were calling I just khun I wasn't present but she just agreed to an interview so persistence actually you just don't know what's happening in that person's idea yeah apologies I lost it there for a second that you gave him krista, she said I'm afraid of reaching out because if they end up being a client is not a good fit for me, then I have to go through the go through with the project or turn them down because I was the initiator that makes me feel uncomfortable that's so interesting so if we initiate then we can't saying that we all have to go all the way right here is is that true let's together? I'll say no every step of the way you have a choice everyone is assessing out is this a good fit at any point in the process and you can say, you know what? Not working for me or you know what my plate is full, I can't do it lots of different ways of addressing that I think all those that doesn't lead to another feather because I think in the modern world of anti social media and all the other things that can happen people do find ways of basically trashing you found somebody to say earlier on their business was ruined by people on yelp because she was turning them away saying I'm sorry I don't I don't you're not the right client for me and said so they went vicious on them and that that that's something I think people are now having a quite a legitimate fear onto you know one bad review on yelp can really harm you I don't have a solution I mean but it is a thing to be aware of you yes agreed but I would just encourage anyone not to let that get in the way of actually reaching out you've got to have confidence in what you're doing absolutely all right so we're still talking about warm email prospecting because that is when I'm saying is one of the best ways to reach out so let me define warm email prospecting first it is essentially a short notice the word short personalized and relevant email message that will get the attention of your carefully selected ideal prospects and elicit a positive response that starts a conversation all right and one of the main reasons that people are afraid of reaching out is actually because they're imagining reaching out to the wrong people to the people that have not been carefully selected in the same way that you get messages from people that are not relevant to you at all and it's obvious, right? But the ones that are relevant to you don't you give them more attention, right? Because there's something personal? In fact, I got another message from someone yesterday who had watched session one when I said, what I know about myself is that I don't do make any decisions at the end of the day because I'll always say no because I'm tired and she said, I watched your creative live session it was awesome before you read on make sure it's the beginning of the day, not the end of the day because I want to ask you for something and so I did actually read it the next day this morning so that I would approach it from this perspective. So, uh, the idea is she personalized it for me and I knew because she said I was watching you and here's how we're connected, and she said something that was about me, I'm obviously going to pay attention, right? So that's the ideal of warm email prospecting is that you're reaching out to people who don't know you, but you find a connection with them and you've carefully selected them and that's why they're going to respond positively that's tricky it takes time, it takes effort, it takes creativity, but that is what is goingto work. And so you're not doing thousands of these. You're doing five, perhaps carefully selected prospects every week, every day, every month, whatever your number is, but it's very carefully selected and it's very personalized. All right, so what warm email prospecting isn't if it's not clear already, I want to clarify it is not an email blast to a list of prospects that would be spam it's one message at a time, it's not the same message toe everyone you know, or even tow everyone you don't know and it's not an email message that talks on ly about you and all the services that you offer, which would be a written sales presentation, and how many of those have you received there's no reason to respond to those unless it's exactly what you need, and warm email prospecting is also not your email newsletter. Okay, that's, something completely different that's a different type of email marketing. Let me tell you a few reasons why it actually works. If I haven't made these points already, it is less intrusive than everything else. It is more relevant to the person you're talking to, then anything else, it is more personalized than most of the messages that they get it is less expensive than many other marketing tools, right? It's just time essentially on whatever you paid if anything for the list and usually that's nothing and it allows youto hand pick exactly who you want to work with the's air your ideal prospects whether you're there your practice prospects or your dream clients all right but you I handpicked them ed gindi likes to talk about it as artisanal marketing right hand crafted marketing that's really the way to think about it. So coming to the end of this lesson in the workbook I have many more explicit details about warm email prospecting and I want to put the question on the table what is your biggest obstacle to reaching out let's see if there any other we've got to get rid of all the obstacles today so that we could be doing this tomorrow, right? So, uh j k a let's see if in the chat room there will be answers to this question what is your big biggest obstacle to reaching out and let's start hear anything we haven't said yet? You said it all time justin. Any other obstacles for you? Um I think just doing the work you know that in in these earlier lessons to actually find that list s o I think just doing that work and who wouldn't reach out to so once that is done and I think that that's. The big obstacle, right. Doing the work. It's usually the opposite because we want something immediately want to be able to just do it right away. But it really does take the thought process and the foundation that we're trying to set here in order to find the people who could give you what you need and then reach out to them that's where we are in the process, and all right, anything else they mean for me, it's, like always, uh, seeing if I could actually provide some value first, um, and figure out what were the most valuable and figure out what challenges of that prospect so that I can give that value and then convert me and that sometimes something that you can guess act if you don't know them or you can look at their link, look at they're linked in profile and get some information from there. Or if they are a clone of a favorite client, then you can perhaps assume that they have similar challenges to the person who you actually know personally. Excellent.