How to Prospect to Your Firm’s Niche

In an ideal world, once your firm selects a niche, your target clients would pop up and come to you. But in reality, you need to go to them. I’d like to share the steps we take to prospect and tweak them to apply to a CPA firm’s ideal clients.

Step 1: Create Your Prospecting List

Depending on your niche, you might start with a list of the top businesses in your niche, a list of members of a particular professional organization, or a simple Google search for businesses in a target industry. While this list is a good start, it’s not complete. You’ll need to do a little bit of investigative work to gather all of the information you need.

First, visit the business’s website to find names, phone numbers, and email addresses for the owner or executives you want to connect with. While you’re there, check out whether your target prospect is part of any other associations, whether they’ve won awards.

Next, check out the individual’s LinkedIn profile to see who they know and what groups they’re involved with. Finally, check your own database to see whether you’ve done any work for them in the past, even if it was a long time ago.

These details may seem insignificant, but can be useful for connecting with your prospect later. Keep in mind that this step doesn’t have to be done by a busy partner, manager or staff member. You can delegate it to someone on your marketing team, an intern, or even a virtual assistant.

Step 2: Send a Short Email

Next, send the decision-maker an introductory email with some high-level information about the service, community, or training you think might be of interest to them. These emails should be sent from the partner or manager’s email address, as they’ll tend to get more notice.

If the recipient replies to the email, the partner or manager can loop in your business development team to set up a phone call and get them further into the sales pipeline. Also, include a scheduling link in your emails so prospects can schedule a meeting with you directly.

Step 3: Follow Up With a Phone Call

If you don’t get a response from the email, follow up with a personal phone call. During the call, give them your short elevator pitch about your service, mention other businesses you’ve worked with and talk about your experience and expertise.

Hopefully, this call ends with setting up a phone call between the consultant and the prospect to move them further into the sales pipeline. If they’re not quite ready to set up an appointment, ask whether you can follow up later.

In Closing

Prospecting in your niche needs to be a priority, so be consistent and set aside time each day for it. Of course, every email and phone call won’t result in a sale, but it’s still a chance to have prospects gain awareness of your firm and develop a relationship with you.

Follow the steps above, and you’ll be well on your way to attracting prospects and growing your firm.

The original article appeared on the Boomer Consulting website.