You’re a bootstrapped business—strapped for cash, strapped for time, and wondering how the hell you’re going to get through another month of balancing endless responsibilities. So what do you do when every minute counts? Well, for one thing, stop counting every minute, you’ll only end up adding undue stress to your already stressful situation. After you take a few deep breaths, start a list and prioritize your responsibilities—qualify your time.
One of the best places to start prioritizing is when you consider how much time you should spend on reconnecting with your prospects. Letting go of a prospect can be like leaving your child behind with a babysitter for the first time. It’s extremely tough to do because you can’t help but think of the potential involved, but it’s very necessary to keep your business alive and well. Otherwise, you may end up spending a lot of your valuable time chasing an unqualified prospect, failing to move forward with new opportunities.
To help you avoid that detrimental waste of time, prioritize and classify your current prospects into three categories and create a tickler file: Probably Not, Maybe Baby, and Hot-to-Trot. In order to class your prospects, you should establish critical points that will help you decide the importance and probability of doing business with each prospect. For example, did you solicit business from them, or did they actively contact you through your website. Active pursuit on the part of the prospect always indicates a positive trend towards converting them into a customer. Or, perhaps you may have talked to your prospect on the phone, but only because you were flexible and put up with their changing the date and time several times—this can be a strong indicator of disinterest or a client that will be unreasonably demanding.
Once you’ve established your parameters for the ideal prospect, assign a corresponding amount of time for each category. For example, for the Probably Not category, it would be a good idea to not spend much time at all on them, perhaps sending them one reconnection e-mail after a month or so. And for your Hot-to-Trot prospects, don’t wait longer than a week or so before you reconnect. But you must keep in mind that even Hot-to-Trot prospects fall off and eventually become Probably Nots.
Now, you’ll also have to create parameters for prioritizing your current clients as well. You must always strive for a careful balance of tending to your current flock while trying to add new sheep to your herd. Here’s a major caveat for you: Never take your longtime clients for granted. Just because they’ve been more than pleased with your work for an extended period of time does not mean they can indefinitely be put on the back burner of your priorities. If you consistently take them for granted, you will spoil any hard-earned loyalty you’ve built up over the years. And by doing the bare minimum or taking too long to complete certain tasks gives them little reason to continue to refer your business—always keep word-of-mouth marketing in mind.
