Know-How Exchange : Strategy

You need to get from behind the mail, start dialing for appointments and make face to face calls. Direct mail is too passive. You can't teach sales by being passive yourself.

Recently someone approached me with a cold calling service -- did he cold call me? No, sent an email. Now why would I considering hiring someone who says he can cold call, but won't cold call me?

If you want to be an effective sales trainer-- what a great demonstration of your skills to go out and sell your clients on yourself.

Beyond that, make yourself a marketing plan. Pick 8 or 10 action items you'll do daily, or any other length of time. For example, you won't go to a networking event daily, but you can make x # calls a day.

I actually got a couple clients for sales coaching by posting book reviews on sales books I have read. They tracked me down!

Sell Well and Prosper tm

Start with informational interviews with the decision makers. Find out exactly what they want and need. What's the lifetime value to you of a new client? If it's sufficiently large, spend the time to woo decision makers. For example, show up at their office, leave a handwritten note for them, and call to follow up.

If you want to reach this audience, you need to do a lot of up-front research to make sure they are really good prospects, and what they need to know before they'll even consider you for the job.

Direct mail is a waste of your time and money. Do the research on each prospective customer yourself. Talk to people who know the company, scope them out on the internet, see if you can schedule some information interviews (per Jay's suggestion), get to know them better than they know themselves.

Then, armed with that information, figure out what you can do for them that they will consider important and valuable. Once you have that in mind, you should be able to set up a meeting -- use the phone or email, not snail mail; or get a mutual friend to set up an introduction. Be prepared with an offer they can't refuse, and demonstrate that your solution is specific to their situation, not a generic sales pitch.