Making Cents Out Of Prospecting

Monday Morning Match is a quick post – maybe a quote, inspirational story or idea – intended to spark some motivation inside each of you so your week gets off to a fantastic start on Monday morning.

It’s time to put your money where your mouth is and start being more purposeful about capturing more business. So if you’re up for a friendly little wager, here’s what I want you to do this week.

Stop by your local bank with a crisp one dollar bill. Ask the teller for two rolls of pennies. You’ll keep one of the rolls in your car and the other roll will go on your desk. The goal is to keep your pennies for as long as you can but if you decide to avoid prospecting, it’s going to cost you money.

• Any week you have no face to face appointments with a new customer or potential client, throw away two pennies.
• Each business day, if you don’t make at least two contacts with someone in your sphere of influence or a former client, throw away two pennies.
• Any week without hosting an open house? Toss away two more pennies.
• If you skip your office business meeting, throw away two pennies. You never know what you might learn that you could share with potential prospects or past clients.
• Any day you don’t smile or laugh at least twice? This will cost you five pennies but a bad attitude could be extremely costly to your business.
• If you drive past a For Sale By Owner without stopping to write down the address or knock on the door to introduce yourself, simply roll down the window and toss two pennies out. You are literally throwing money away.
• So you wrote down the FSBO’s number to save some pennies but then never got up the nerve to call them and try to schedule an appointment? Yep…throw away two more pennies.
• Any day you don’t wear your company/brand name tag or a lapel pin that could lead to a conversation with someone about real estate? It’s going to cost you a penny.
• If you let a day go by that you didn’t educate yourself with a sales podcast, webinar, training class or news article, throw a penny away.
• If you don’t show or preview 5 houses in a week, throw another penny away.
• Every business day where you don’t send a personal note to someone, it’ll cost you another penny.

How long can you make a roll of pennies last? If you’re feeling really aggressive, change the pennies into quarters or maybe even use dollar bills. The greater the risk, the greater the reward? Challenge a few of your office mates to a contest or just make it a goal of yours to stay more focused on your lead generating activities.

Are you starting to see all the simple things you could be doing to put more clients in your car, more signs in the yards around town and eventually more money in your pocket? When you start protecting those pennies with pride and purpose, you’ll start to realize that Benjamin Franklin was right; a penny saved IS a penny earned.

Photo Credit: Jalexartis on Flicker