Identifying Prospective Customers

Before you can sell anything you have to understand 2 things:

- what you are selling

- and why a customer needs it, i.e. why a customer will buy your product.

Define your product. In the Labour Recruitment Market, recruitment consultants sell the following:-

- SKILLS in the temporary and labour outsource contract business

- STAFF in the permanent placement division

- CONSULTING in the staff development, industrial relations and training

Labour Recruitment is a service to customers because of the following factors:-

- Customers can concentrate on their core business and not waste time on recruitment

- Recruitment is conducted by trained personnel using professional selection methods

- Customers are able to access skills without the added cost of carrying permanent staff which necessarily carry hidden costs

- Customers have access to the best person for the job, and not only the best of a small selection (own advert)

Once you have defined your product, then you can begin to identify WHO in the market will need your product / service.

To identify who will need/use your product, you first have to look at the corporate and industrial companies operating in your area, and then make a subjective judgement call on who could need what you have to offer. The actual list of prospective customers is drafted from a combination of the following activities:-

- Use a local business directory

- Use the Yellow Pages following industry type

- Conduct a Visual Survey (a physical look) throughout all local business blocks, and look around local corporate and industrial areas recording what names of companies you see and which of them appear to be likely prospects.

- Search the Internet to identify companies within your area, specific area of expertise and to obtain their background and product range from their website.

Target yourself to identify a set number i.e. 180 names of prospective companies.

Having identified a specific number of clients whom you believe will need and use your product, you need to establish a plan for approaching them.

Log on next week for more. In the meantime here is an activity to get you started.

ACTIVITY

1. Describe a particular corporate or industrial target market i.e. who needs the product you are selling?

2 Identify 180 prospective customers using all resources available and compile a client list. Select the customers according to your preferred specialist or generalist ‘desk’.