๐ค ๐ค There’s a technique I used throughout my consulting career that helped me kill two birds with one stone:
It gave me fresh, juicy insights about my market AND helped me build me a solid sales pipeline. ๐ฆ๐๐ฒ๐ฎ๐น ๐ถ๐ ๐
Everyone knows you need to speak with your audience to learn about their changing needs. Doing so can help you create better solutions that set you apart from everyone else in your space.
โ ๏ธ But here’s the problem:
Market research can be time-consuming and boring. You have clients to serve and new prospects to win over. How can you possibly find the time and motivation do research? Worse still, how do you get people to agree to speak with you? ๐ฃ๏ธ
I get it, it’s hard. So here’s what I did and what worked for me. Consider it and do it if it makes sense for your situation.
I call this technique, “๐ง๐ต๐ฒ ๐๐๐ฑ๐ถ๐ฒ๐ป๐ฐ๐ฒ ๐ฅ๐ฒ๐๐ฒ๐ฎ๐ฟ๐ฐ๐ต ๐๐๐ป๐ป๐ฒ๐น (๐๐ฅ๐)”. It’s designed to gather new market insights and build a pipeline for your business.
Here’s how it works:
Reach out to your past clients, past prospects you havenโt talked to in a while and new potential clients and say youโre putting together a short survey with industry leaders on how the market is changing. ๐ฆ๐ฎ๐ ๐๐ผ๐โ๐น๐น ๐๐ต๐ฎ๐ฟ๐ฒ ๐ฎ ๐๐๐บ๐บ๐ฎ๐ฟ๐ ๐ผ๐ณ ๐๐ต๐ฒ ๐ฎ๐ด๐ด๐ฟ๐ฒ๐ด๐ฎ๐๐ฒ ๐ฟ๐ฒ๐๐๐น๐๐ ๐๐ถ๐๐ต ๐๐ต๐ฒ๐บ ๐ผ๐ป๐ฐ๐ฒ ๐๐ผ๐โ๐ฟ๐ฒ ๐ฑ๐ผ๐ป๐ฒ ๐๐ถ๐๐ต ๐๐ต๐ฒ ๐๐๐ฟ๐๐ฒ๐. This part is key because executive decision-makers want to know what their peers think about the market and trends.
Ask to schedule a short call (10-15 mins) so you can talk through a few questions.
Once you have them on the call, ask them the following questions:
โWhatโs the #1 problem or inefficiency the market/industry faces today?
โHow is it impacting organizations today?
โHow will it impact future performance?
โWhat do you think must be done to fix it?
โWhich organizations are doing it right?
I started doing this purely as research but realized that once I got people talking about challenges and future performance, some would be interested in hearing how I can fix these problems for them. That’s one way I grew my pipeline. ๐ฅ
That’s all there is to it. You can do this today. Reach out to 10 people and make the ask. If you’d like scripts on how to make the ask, let me know in the comments and I’ll send them to you. ๐โ๏ธ
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Ready to add $100k-$500k revenue to your consulting business in 12 months or less without burning out? Schedule a call and let me show you how.
Image credit: openai Dall-e
