When an Acquaintance Turns into a Prospect

When an acquaintance turns into a prospect

The quandary is all too familiar. You’ve been networking for quite a while and have met some people who you see quite often. They are a perfect fit for your product or service – they ARE your target market. What do you do? How do you move them into the “prospect” category from that of “acquaintance”?

The easiest way is to ask for a one-on-one meeting with them to learn more about them and their business while you introduce yours to them. While discussing your business, be sure to state the benefits, features and the target market. You are, in a very subtle way, letting them know they are a perfect fit. This, though, is not the time to try to sell them.

Turning this meeting into a sales call most often will turn people off because they’ll realize you do not really want to learn about them. They leave that meeting with the impression (and rightly so) that you really don’t care about their business-you were just using that as an excuse to sell to them.

After the one-on-one meeting, make the connections you promised, send the white paper you offered or the links to websites that you discussed. Once you’ve shown interest and proved your sincere desire to build a relationship, and then continue to build the relationship. At some point, if the time is right, they will realize they definitely do you’re your services or product, and now you have already built trust. Then it’s an easy sell!

Labels: building relationships, networking