Unlock the Hidden List of Qualified Prospects Hiding Right Under Your Nose 

Your list is king. It’s a database of prospects that you have control over - and it represents a constant source of prospects and sales opportunities. In our recent Marketing Minute posts, we’ve discussed different aspects of building a list that supports your business.

From knowing how to create your Prospect Profile to determining the right Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s) that will help you make the goals you set a reality by mapping out exactly what you need to do to reach them.

Today’s focus is about choosing the right path to building your list. This is where we get started with the tactical methods to tie together all the planning work we’ve discussed, and start building your list.

Let’s take a step back first though. Think about this for a second…

As a society, I think humans today are often too focused on ‘what’s next’ rather than the opportunities sitting right in front of them today.

You see this in all areas of life… the way people binge-watch a tv show and are ready to start the next episode of a Netflix series before the last has even rolled credits.

Or in sports… when a season ends or a champion is crowned, within minutes the broadcasters will often look ahead to next year’s favorites or the likelihood of the winner to repeat as champions.

This happens in marketing too.

So many people misappropriate marketing automation and it leads to churning and burning through leads. It leads to wasted opportunities and lost revenue.

There’s a study I’ve referenced in the past, that Microsoft did, which found that nearly 50% of salespeople stopped trying to contact a prospect after just one attempt.

One attempt!

That same study went on to find that in reality, it was the 8th or 9th attempt that led to the prospect being most likely to respond, engage, or show interest in your offer. 

The question is…

How can you manage to build a list of prospects that will engage with you?

Two Groups of Prospects and How to Find Them

So, we’re going to look at two groups of prospects in today’s lesson.

1. First, the prospects that are hiding right under your nose. 

The ones that I recommend are best to start with as it will be the quickest to launch and allow you to test your messaging and projections you’ve been making.

2. Attract and Find New Prospects.

Next, you’ll want to take a look at how to attract and find new prospects. But don’t make the mistake of thinking you need a lot of them to get started or get a result. If you aim and find the perfect prospects...the ones we defined in a previous Marketing Minute, and you have the right messaging and nurture campaign in place, you can get incredible results with just a list of 20 or 50 of these ideal clients.

Strategies to Unlock the Hidden List of Prospects Under Your Nose

First, let’s look at your current lists.

I’ve been in numerous conversations with people and asked about their list. Too often I ask and people say ‘I hardly have one.’ Or more forcefully ‘It doesn’t exist.’

I argue that unless you are completely brand-new...it’s likely you have SOME list of prospects. Again this might not be a 30,000 person list of people subscribed to your newsletter.

But if you look in the right places you’ll be surprised what you can find.

Have you EVER manually emailed a prospective client? Someone you met at an event? Or a networking dinner? Or someone you had referred to you from a former client?

Or that you previously had a sales conversation with?

Is there anybody in your contacts within your Gmail or Outlook or Yahoo or whatever email system you use?

If you are like most of us it’s a combination of clients, vendors, employees, AND prospects.

The key here is culling the list of prospects that you already have communicated with in the past.

How many do you have? For some of you, you might have the 20-50 right there. For others maybe a handful. But chances are this is a great place to start. 

Now, that might be obvious, but some of the most effective strategies come from the most obvious and simple of places.

Alright, so where else might you have prospect information. Certainly, if you have a list or a CRM - finding a segment of IDEAL prospects and grabbing 20-50 is an option. But ultimately, build a search to get a segment of 20-50 and get their email details into a spreadsheet.

Other than that one place we start with many clients is a place where many of you likely have a hidden list you have never considered in this way. That place would be LinkedIn. Your current LinkedIn connections are a great place to build up your list of 20-50 prospects. 

Because you are able to filter and search to find your BEST prospects...and LinkedIn provides email information for your current connections.  And from there, you can use LinkedIn to go get new prospects as well.

Okay. There are 3 quick suggestions to get you started with finding your first 20-50. That might be enough for you, or it might just be the start.

For others, if you need to add in new prospects, I’m going to share 2 playbooks and a bonus one if you work mostly off referrals.

LinkedIn.

LinkedIn is one of the most effective databases online because it’s information provided by your prospects directly AND it’s a social platform. People join it to network. To share information. To meet and interact with others.

This is one of our go-to strategies for the Perfect Prospects Lead System and all of our Connect 365 users. It has you covered under implied consent rules that exist for email in the US, Canada, the EU (and just about every major country)...because I know you want to play by the rules and do everything above board.

Now aside from LinkedIn I often get asked about other social media (Facebook and Twitter)...which you can certainly give it a look.

Though in our experience people are much less often going to have email information in their profiles there. But on the LinkedIn side, when you are a first-degree connection, we find that in around 80-90% of connections the email information is available.

So, where else can you turn?

B2B Databases

There are a number of B2B contact databases out there with seemingly more and more popping up every day. 

Some of the most common our customers utilize are GetProspect, Seamless.ai, Personas, ZoomInfo, Discover.org - we’ll put a big giant list in the workbook.

Most of these work fairly similarly.

You enter the information on the type of prospect you want to find, they return a list of results with varying degrees of accuracy.

Two big pieces of advice if you go this route:

1. Start slow - aim for that 20-50 number of your perfect prospects so that you can stay on the good side of email marketing, and don’t overdo it.
2. Push for verified or validated emails. This will help you reduce bounce rates or bad email addresses. Most all of the tools worth their salt have an option for verified or validated emails - so make sure you use it.

The final note on these tools is that particularly in Canada or the EU, we’ve included a disclaimer of a recommended approach if you plan on using a tool like the above to actually combine it with LinkedIn outreach. 

Your Turn: The 20 Minute Client Formula 

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