When You Run Out of Ideas4 min read
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There comes a time in everyone’s business when they run out of ideas. You are working on a problem and have tried a number of things but none of them work and no new ideas are coming.
Since this has happened to me a million times I think I’m somewhat of an expert on the topic!
Let’s say you want to get the attention of a specific prospect. And you know if you could just get their attention, you could get a meeting which might turn into some new business.
One way to start is to research strategies. So you go on Google and look up “how to get the attention of a prospective client,” and your first search leads to this article in Forbes:
Nine Highly Effective Ways to Get A Client’s Attention
This article offers nine creative ways to get the attention of prospective clients. And I think all of them are quite good.
But then we read over all those ideas and get overwhelmed. That’s a lot of things to do!
Well, I recommend you pick the one that resonates the most with you. Here’s the one I liked the best:
“Too many people call or email prospects and clients based on their own agenda. What is your client’s agenda? What do they care about? What challenges do they face? Every time you communicate with them, regardless of medium, you should be providing something they value. Who cares about your new product? They are busy. Make it worth their time by knowing what is important to them.”
Makes sense, right? This simple idea suggests an approach. Now you need to turn this approach into a plan of action.
Think of the person you want to contact. What do you know about them and their business? Who do you know that knows them? Can you discover the current challenges they are facing?
Look, this isn’t an instant thing. It takes some time, thought, and reflection. But now you are thinking in the right direction.
Before, your question was simply how to get their attention. Now your pursuit is to learn what some of their challenges are, as you know that has a better chance of getting their attention.
Perhaps you discover that they have an issue with employee retention and this is something you help your clients with.
So you do a search online and find a really good article on employee retention. And so you write the following message to your prospective client:
Dear Richard, I just came across this excellent article on employee retention. Here’s the link. Thought you might find it useful. I’ve used several of these ideas with some of my clients. Let me know what you think. Cheers, David.
Will this work? Well, based on your research, you figure that there’s a good possibility it will open the door to a meeting.
If I look at all the things I’ve done to attract clients over the years, this has very much been my approach. You can break it down into 5 steps:
1. Clarify your intention. Be very clear about what your problem is and what you want to accomplish. Without clarity, you’ll cast about aimlessly, often complaining about your problem.
2. Do some research. You can start with Google. When I put in that search I found 20 articles on the first search page with ideas on that topic. Because Google sorts for relevancy, the chances are high that your research will generate a number of good ideas fairly quickly.
3. Sort and choose. You can’t do everything, but you can do something. As you read a few articles, some ideas will emerge that feel promising to pursue.
4. Plan and act. Organize your plan, your approach, and action steps. Then give it a try. Remember that it may take several tries before you hit on the most effective approach for you.
5. Test and persist. You might be lucky and get results on your first attempt, but with a little more trial and error, you’ll likely get the response you’re looking for.
What I’ve learned is that you can apply this approach to virtually any business problem.
The initial Google research is the catalyst. But then you need to process the data you discover and turn it into a plan of action.
OK, now what is it that you want to accomplish? Then click here.
Cheers, Robert
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