It feels pretty good to have a loyal customer base that you’ve built relationships with while growing your business. You know their needs, and they have learned to rely on you to have the products they need when they need them. However, you can’t continue to grow your business if you aren’t constantly seeking out new customers and leads.
It isn’t always comfortable to make that first call, but seeking out new customers is imperative to continue growing your business. Surely not every livestock owner, cattle feeder, horse and dog owner in your sales area is familiar and using BioZyme® products, and if they are, kudos to you! So, find those who are not using the products and reach out to them.
Not sure the best way to find those prospects? Here are a few simple suggestions from Inc.com to find new customers.
Cold-calling. This involves reaching out to someone you’ve probably never talked to before and know very little about. Perhaps you scour the ads in the local shopper paper each week for people who are selling livestock. If you see someone in your area who isn’t a customer, they automatically become a potential customer. Chances are if they aren’t a customer, the reason is because no one has ever asked them before.
Networking. There are several opportunities for networking in the agricultural business world. Perhaps you have a booth at a local cattlemen’s meeting or extension field day. You might even attend the weekly sales at the local livestock auction barn or the county fair to visit with people that you know are not current customers.
Ask for referrals. Ask your satisfied customers to send their friends and customers your way. Perhaps you can work out a deal to get a buyer’s list from a seedstock producer who hosts an annual sale. Peer reviews go a long way, and especially if other producers see positive results, they are going to want to get similar results with their livestock.
Affiliate marketing. Partner with a non-competing ag company like a bull stud or fencing company to share contact names to get the maximum exposure. Perhaps its as simple as inviting their customer list to an open house or producer meeting.
Once you’ve found new prospects, be sure to approach them in a way that that shows you are interested in learning more about them and their operation and offer solutions to their challenges. Mike Wadle, Director of National Sales – North, offers three pieces of advice for approaching prospective customers:
Listen, listen, listen. Ask open-ended questions and let the prospect talk. If you ask the right questions and listen more than you talk, you will learn a lot about the prospect. The prospect will feel like you care, and that you are sharing genuine interest in his or her operation.
Do not go into a call with a predetermined sales route you want to follow. If you think you are going to sell tons of one product without even knowing the needs of the prospect, you will likely have deflated goals. Once you know what the needs are of the prospect, you can start recommending products that best fit his or her needs.
Follow up is very important. Wadle says it is important to follow up with the prospects to show that you care about them and their needs, and the sooner the better. Don’t put off follow-up. Perhaps before you leave the initial call ask when a good time is to reach back out to them to answer any questions they might have thought of.
Finding new customers is all about building relationships. Relationships start with simple questions, showing you care about a person, their animals and their bottom line. Expand your relationships, and watch your customer base grow.