500 New Potential Clients Per Year

• May 22, 2017
• by ServeNow.com Staff
• Marketing

Is it possible to get 500 new potential clients per year for your process serving or private investigation business? It certainly is – and it does not have to cost you a fortune in marketing and sales. With a modest time investment and a concrete plan of action, you easily can have a list of potential clients to work on converting into paying customers.

The Formula

• Figure out who your potential clients are and specifically target them.
• Write an email to introduce yourself and your business.
• Email your letters to the potential clients.
• Follow up with your potential clients after they have received your letter.

Letters of Introduction

One of the best ways to get potential leads is to write emails or letters of introduction. This is a great way to introduce yourself and your business because it allows you to say everything you wish in a logical, but friendly fashion. You can quickly outline what you do and then move on to why a customer might want to entrust their process service or private investigation needs to you.

You can hire a writer to write the letter for you, but you can also try it yourself. You may find that it is much simpler than you originally thought. Start by outlining your business and your best skills in a few sentences. You want to start your letter in a way that tells the potential client everything they absolutely must know – because many of your readers will read no further. If you have won awards or have been entrusted by Fortune 500 companies or major local law firms, your introductory paragraph is the place to point this out.

Once you have included your biggest accomplishments or your most impressive credentials, you will need to write the body paragraphs of your letter. If you prefer, you can just add a paragraph or a bulleted list of why someone might want to hire you. You will want to provide details about your company and your credentials. Use active words when possible.

Your last paragraph should be a call to action. Tell them that you will follow-up with a phone call within the next week to discuss their current investigation and/or process serving needs, but you are available sooner if they would like to contact you for further information.

Provide your contact information again at the end. Then, read your letter aloud. Does it sound professional and well-written? If not, go back and change it until it sounds dynamic. Also, be sure to keep your email or letter brief so they get all the information they need quickly.

IMPORTANT—make sure that all elements of your email or letter have matching logos, fonts, etc. Your goal here is to introduce your business and portray a professional brand/image.

Look At Your Current Customers and Markets

Once you have your email or letter written, you should have a clearer image of what you can offer to clients that is unique. Now you should start identifying where your potential leads may be. To get some good clues, start with what you already know. Look at your current clients. Do many of them come from the same geographic area? Are many of them from the same industry or the same-sized business? Which clients bring you the most business?

If you find, for example, that many of your clients are medium-sized law firms in a nearby city, you may want to target other law firms in the same location. This type of client already goes to you for business, so a similar client may find your services useful, as well. There are a number of ways to find similar businesses in a specific location—Yellow Pages, online searches, you can even purchase these lists from companies like InfoUSA. Other places you may find potential clients include events for small businesses, your city’s chamber of commerce, local business directories and client referrals.

Send Your Introduction, Then Follow Up

Ideally, you should plan on sending as many emails per week as you can follow up on. For some of you, that number may be five, for others maybe that number is 25. Put this on your to-do list for the week.

The important thing is to set a goal that is attainable for your company. If you are a small business, that goal may be 100 new leads per year. If you are a larger company with more infrastructure, perhaps that goal is more than 500.

You could continue contacting potential clients indefinitely. However, if you want more business you will have to work on converting your leads into paying customers. You need to set aside one hour per week to follow up with at least ten new potential clients. This will help refresh your leads about your services and will show them that you are serious about helping them.

There are many ways that you can follow up. You can call a lead when you have a few minutes to yourself or you can drop by an office. The lead may not need help now, but if they are in your target market, at some point they will. Perhaps your lead has an investigator or process server he uses, at some point he may become dissatisfied or the firm may no longer be able to help him. Make sure you are the one potential customers turn to when that happens. After you have followed up with your lead once, you may want to try again in a few months. Sometimes, it can take a few approaches before a lead is ready to become your customer. Once you have that customer, you will see that the time invested was well worth it.

Cultivating potential clients doesn’t have to be a huge time investment, but it does require persistence. Just write a letter to introduce yourself and your business, target your potential clients, email your introduction or mail your letter to these leads, and follow up with them after they have received it. Stick to this routine and you can easily grow your business with 500 new leads a year.