Making Your First Move

You can’t set up a first meeting until you have a lead.

It has lots of names -- the initial contact, the cold call, the first call, the canvas, the exploratory call, and others. That first visit to a prospective customer can be daunting, even scary, experience for most people early in their careers. The good news is that this does change over time.

You can’t set up a first meeting until you have a lead. Experiment in finding different sources of leads:

• Former customers
• Referrals from existing customers
• Newspaper articles and industry publications
• Trade shows/symposiums
• Centers of influence (third parties)
• The “dead file” -- prospects others have given up on

Armed with leads, your key prospecting tool will be the letter. You can justify three of these in the prospecting process; one to introduce yourself, one to confirm and appointment to meet, and one to follow up on the initial meeting. Emails are fine once you have a relationship, but send a traditional letter for the initial approach -- it will set you apart from the competition.

ACTION POINT: Use the source’s above to build a list of leads.