6 Strategies to Uncover and Cultivate Sales Opportunities
Waiting for opportunities to turn up is still the most common approach in small firms, and still the least reliable. Here are six ways to go out and find them, updated from the version I wrote in February 2024.
1. Ask your existing clients for referrals
Recommendations from people we know remain the most trusted form of marketing. In Nielsen's 2021 Trust in Advertising study, 88% of respondents said they trust recommendations from people they know more than any other channel. (The 92% figure in my original came from Nielsen's 2012 study.)
Happy clients will often refer you if you ask at the right moment, usually just after a result. Make asking part of your process: a short, specific request that names the kind of person you can help.
2. Start with the network you already have
Your existing connections have already said yes to you once. On every client account where we have run both, outreach to existing connections drew two to five times the reply rate of cold outreach. In my own warm campaigns, 24% of people replied (561 of 2,292). A reply means any reply, including "no thanks", but each one is a real conversation.
3. Define your ideal client precisely
In 2024 I called these buyer personas. Today I would go further: describe your ideal client specifically enough that two people would build the same list from it. Role, size of business, sector, location, and the problem they are likely to have right now. A vague description produces vague messages, and vague messages get ignored.
4. Partner with businesses that serve the same clients
Complementary businesses already have the trust of the people you want to reach: a bookkeeper and a business coach, a therapist and a wellbeing practitioner, a speaker and an events agency. Agree a simple referral arrangement, and if you pay commission, put it in writing.
5. Choose events by who is in the room
Events still work when the audience matches your ideal client. Decide beforehand who you want to meet, and follow up within a couple of days while you are still remembered. In my experience the follow-up is where event contacts go cold, and it is also the easiest part to automate.
6. Keep a CRM, and spend your time on the right people
A CRM is only as good as what goes into it, so keep it current automatically: new contacts from forms, calls and events added without anyone copying them across. Then think about timing. LinkedIn's B2B Institute, drawing on research with the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute, describes the 95-5 rule: at any given moment, 95% of your potential buyers are not ready to buy. Give your closest attention to the few who are, and keep in touch politely and consistently with the rest, so you are the one they remember when their moment comes.
Putting it together
Referrals and events depend on timing you do not control. Targeted outreach to a clearly defined list, with an easy way to opt out, is the one channel on this list you can run every single week. We have now contacted 15,282 decision makers across four client accounts this way, with every message written for the person and checked against the client's rules before it goes.
If you would like that run for you, here is how our done-for-you outreach works.
