Financial Success

prospecting ideas (continued)

1. Income tax prepares like H&R™[u1] block people can be super bird dogs, since they know who is getting refunds!
2. Your local postmen know a lot of people.  They are great bird dogs and I am sure they would not mind extra cash.
3. Your delivery people like UPS, pizza boy, FedEx[u2] , etc. They also know & meet a lot of people.  Great bird-dogs.
4. Wear a nametag.  It must be readable with your company logo.  Wear it on your right side.   When we meet a prospect we sort of, move forward in a right side direction moving your body left and back and hiding your name tag if it is on you left side.  Make sure your prospect knows your name and whom you represent.
5. Churches have preachers, preachers have followers.  Start going to church, it’s good for the soul and best yet you have an opportunity to meet your pastor.   Figure out a way to make his church some money with your help and of course set him up as a bird dog.
6. Join your local parent teacher association and get really involved.  If you dress for success and act like it they will probably elect you for office.  That is what you want!  Teachers are great potential buyers! Set up the local principal as your bird dog.  Word of caution if you ever make it as an officer of the PTA, do not buck the teachers systems.  Instead promote & defend the teachers.
7. Set up all of your staff, from your errand boy to the delivery boy as bird dogs.  Your staff can be your worst enemy or your best friend.   Give them a chance to make some money.  Remember most office staffs think that salesman makes too much money and that they are underpaid.

8. 1 scouts working  for you for a fee

   Find garage sales in your newspaper and sent them a poster and flyers with your best promotion.  Tell them to place the advertising of your company promotion during their garage sale.  Give the owners a bird dog fee for every person they can refer to you from their garage sale.  Make sure you send them your business card, plenty of literature and inform them how to collect the bird dog fee from you.

9. Have a goal of achieving 1000 bird dogs using the above ideas.  Make sure you have a personal bird dog directory, with all your bird dog information.
10. Never stop learning.  When you think that you know enough about anything, that’s when you become ignorant.  How much do you know about your product and your competitor is what determines credibility.  Attend as many factory, advancement schooling, sales training classes, or sales training seminars as you possibly can.  Make it a religion!

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prospecting ideas (continued)

1. Sponsor a car wash. Let them use your company’s name as the front to expose you to the public.  Try to use high school seniors.   After all they are your future prospects and they may soon need your service or product, or they may know someone who needs what you offer.  They can also greatly influence their parents.
2. Mail out an invitation to visit your store.  A by invitation only sneak preview.  Always mention it’s “a no obligation preview” start with graduating seniors including college students and keep an eye out for sharp personnel you can hire.
3. Set up a display at a college campus and ask for feedback.  Exposure & potential clients are here, now!
4. Always send your best customer a thank-you note and a box of chocolates.  Everybody likes chocolates and it’s a symbol or gesture of love.  Attach your business card and ask for new business by them or by referral.
5. If you can find a way to track your customer’s birthday, send them a happy birthday card signed by all the staff.
6. Read the newspaper engagements, divorces, retirements, new births, and promotion announcements they are all great sources of information and they might fit right down your ally on your product, service or your line of work.
7. Your local scandal sheet is another great source of information.  (You can get this information from your local county clerk) find out who has applied for a marriage license, and who got a divorce.   Divorces give you 2 possible prospects.  Divorcees must be contacted as soon as possible, before one of them ruins the others credit.
8. Set up other sales representatives as your “bird dogs^1”.  Especially commission salesman. I am sure they would not mind and extra side income.  I recommend insurance salesman. They are doorknockers and meet a lot of people.
9. Do not forget to set up your barber and your wife’s beautician as bird dogs.  They also meet and talk to a lot of people.  In a lot of cases they are like psychiatrists.  They know everything about their clients, and their clients’ friends.
10. Your bartender and your waiters are also darn good bird dogs.  They meet and talk to a lot of people.

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Whatever your business or whatever you do, it will always have to do with selling

Here are some good old fashioned prospecting ideas.

If you follow as many as possible, I guarantee you will be selling more!  Selling more means more money and more money equates to success.

1. If you have old customers write 5 postcards a day with a friendly thank you, offering them the opportunity to make some money by referring a customer to you.
2. Make 5 phone calls a day to old prospects even if they did not qualify or need your product or service the first time you met them.  They may be ready now, or they might know someone that wants your product or service.  The nice thing is that they will appreciate you calling on them.  Everyone likes to feel important, especially when they are asked for their business, opinions or advice.
3. Put up flyers at all Laundromats, restaurants, mom & pop grocery stores, and anywhere that you can get permission.  Remember!  It must be up to date on your must current sales promotion.   Clip your business card to it.
4. Put personal magnetic signs on your car doors.
5. Meet all area managers set them up as your personal selling associates for a small fee.
6. Meet as many managers as you can regardless of what business they may be in.  As long as they have personnel working for them, several things happen.
   1. They will recommend you, if they find out that an employee is shopping for your product.  Being the boss it’s hard for the employee not to listen to them.
   2. You should not have any problem with employment verification if you need it.
   3. The manager will like that extra cash.  I suggest that you set up managers at a better than normal solicitation commission fee.
7. If you need a list of where to find managers, try the yellow pages.  There must be several thousand possibilities.  All stores have at least one!
8. Every time you sell your product or service, or when you take up a new client or a new cash deposit, take two pictures of every customer.  Start you album of referrals put one picture with phone number in it.   The other pictures should go on your “very satisfied customers” board.  If you do not have a board, start one.  Place it in your office.  Your own hall of fame.
9. Put a “thank-you note” and your business card inside your customers purchase.   It’s your calling card and your chance to show appreciation and gratitude on your behalf.  A sign of a great person!  After all you do want prospects to call on you, don’t you?  Give them a reason to remember you!
10. If you are in real estate or in the auto business, start the thank-you system line.  This means that every one in the sales center must be aware of who is coming for a closing.   Put a 3” x 12” sign with a thank-you Mr.  & Mrs. “buyer” by the managers front door.   As the customer comes in every one should extend their hand, call them by their last name, thank them and congratulate them on their purchase.

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A person without a goal or plan will feel relentless pressure to just go on and on and on in life.  Without a means to measure progress, you will be depressed at the end of a bad day.  You can’t even feel good at the end of a good day, because you have no way of knowing whether it was good enough.  But when you have a workable plan, the pressure lightens.  When you know exactly how much you need to do, to sell, or to gain to reach your goal, you can keep a bad day in perspective—and you’ll know when a good day is worth celebrating.

Becoming a millionaire requires a great persona (that should be you).  It also requires a lot of discipline, hard work, and better ideas than your competitors or those who surround you.  Let’s start by talking about how you should look.

Take a good look at yourself in the mirror; do you like what you see?  Would you want to associate with someone who looks acts and is as presentable as you are?  How is your haircut?  Do you look successful or just getting by?  How is your health?  Do you look healthy and look nice and clean with no body odors of any type?  Do you get the picture?  You are the first impression and the most important when you meet a stranger and you want to impress, associate, or take his hard earned money.  Think about it; put your self in someone else’s shoes.  Go shopping for a high ticket item and see what turns you off and then make sure that you do not do the same thing.  Make it a point to go to civic meetings and meet community members and copy that which every one seems to admire in that person.  Meet successful people in your community and study them and see what makes them different from the rest.  This will be your first step towards becoming a millionaire.  Copy success and do no stop there, make it better.

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