Starting a new business? Getting into sales? I’ve learned that everything in life is dependent on your ability to connect with and build relationships with others. Your network is your net worth, as the saying goes.
Creating a list of prospects (or people you want to reach out to to reconnect with and see if there is an need for your product or service) and then creating the habit of reaching out to people on your list on a daily basis is paramount to the success of network marketers or sales people alike.
But when you first get started where do you find the people to initially have on your list to reach out to? The answer is simple but not an easy pill to swollow. Simple because anyone could create a list an start today; difficult because, likewise, anyone could create a list an start today. All that it requires to get started is a why and a willingness.
Your First List
Your first prospect list is going to start with the people you already know or knew in the past. There are three categories for this:
- Your close friends, neighbors, and relatives
- Co-workers, casual friends, and professional relationships
- People you knew in the past who you made an impression on you
To start pull out a piece of paper and begin to jot down the names of people that are your close friends, neighbors, and relatives. After you get through a list of your friends, neighbors, and relatives, move on to the next category your co workers, casual friends, and people you have a professional relationship with. Then lastly, the people you knew in the past that may have made an impression on your and you’d like to get in touch with.
Contact list memory jogger
Here is a little cheat sheet to help jog your memory and get the prospect discovery juices flowing. Write anyone and everyone down on a piece of people and do not think about it! Thinking will slow you down and disrupt the flow. Some of the people you think of may seem intimidatingly to call but just write down their name and move on. Deal with the fear later.
| Co-workers, casual friends, professional relationships | People from the past |
| Personal Trainer Friends of Friends Your Dentist Your child’s Pediatrician Director of child’s Daycare Child’s daycare/school teacher Who cuts your hair? Who owns that hair salon? Anyone in your current phone book Parents of child’s friends People you see often at the Gym Current co workers. Your department or different department People you see often at Church/Mass/etc. People you play sports with People in Yoga/group-x class People who know you on social media | Old sports teams High School Classmates College dormmates / Floor mates College Classmates Highschool Teachers / College Professors Person who sold you your car, home, insurance, cell phone Person who sold you your wedding dress / suit People who attended your wedding People you completed a class project with Ex co-workers Ex supervisors Old neighbors |
When creating an initial list it’s important not to pre judge who will be on your list. Your goal is to do a brain dump of all of the possible people you’ve touched or are touching in your lifetime and then narrow down from there. A list of 50-100 solid names is a good starting place but you may have more than that (woohoo!) or you may have less, it’s all good.
What to do next?
After you have listed all of the possible people who you would like to reach out to, it’s recommended that you put the serious people into some type of tracker. Whether you use a spreadsheet to track activity with your prospects, a CRM such as Hubspot or Namelist, or old fashioned pen and paper you will want a record of who you contacted, what you spoke about, what to follow-up with, and key details about this person that you can reference in future contact with your prospect.
In a future article we will dive into how to start tackling a namelist and start to qualify the people on your list for your product or service. But remember, even if your prospect doesn’t ever buy from you or join your team you WILL have made an impact on him or her, small or large, just by reaching out, telling them you thought about them and why, and having a genuine interest in them as a person.
Very very very few people do this type of thing consistently and you will stand out and over time have an extraordinary influence over people. Plus you will feel great about yourself too because you’re taking action and making progress. And people are most happy when they’re making progress towards a worthwhile goal.
Cheers👋
