Why Your Prospect Pipeline Dries Up
/The most successful independent consultants find their own work by building a pipeline of leads through their own outreach efforts. Using a customer relationship management tool (CRM) can make this so much easier. That's why PICA partners with Mimiran, the CRM for solopreneurs that was built by a solopreneur, Reuben Swartz. His latest article is packed with practical advice, so we're sharing it with you. Whether you use Mimiran or Hubspot or Pipedrive or even an excel spreadsheet, you'll likely pick up at least one tip from this article.
By: Reuben Swartz, Founder, Mimiran: the CRM for solo consultants who love serving clients but hate “selling”
Your prospect pipeline dries up because you get busy and you stop talking to prospects and partners who can hire you or refer you to others.
You need to make sure you put time on your calendar every week for outreach. (Mimiran makes this really easy, but whatever system you are using, make sure there is time blocked off in your calendar.) With a CRM like Mimiran, you're not only reminded to make the call, you can do it right from your computer, and easily take notes.
Usually it's not enough to just talk to someone once. You have to follow up to build credibility and trust over time. If you forget, it's a missed opportunity and you have a leaky pipeline.
Most CRMs will let you manually set a "next task date" for a contact -- do it. Of course, every once in a while, you'll forget, and the prospect will "fall off the table".
That's why Mimiran lets you tag contacts and set conversation frequencies for those tags, so your prospects never disappear from your radar.
And if you're doing this all by yourself, and you hate "selling" to begin with, sometimes it's hard to get motivated, even for money. But just because you're solo, doesn't mean you're alone. With Mimiran's leaderboard, you get a Peleton-like boost of social motivation.
I'm totally biased. I created Mimiran because traditional CRMs built for the VP of Sales were driving me crazy, so I suggest starting a free trial.
But regardless of your CRM/spreadsheet/Post-it Notes system, you can use these techniques to keep your pipeline flowing.
This not only means more business and more money, it means that you have:
more control over your destiny
less stress because you don't have to "close" any particular prospect, you can just be yourself and help
more flexibility in choosing the clients you want to work with.
So if you don't have time blocked off in your calendar to work on your pipeline for next week, why not take a couple of minutes and carve out some time now? Even 30 minutes is far better than nothing.
Mimiran is the CRM for people who hate selling, helping you turn web visitors into leads, leads into conversations, and conversations into clients. PICA members get a 15% discount off any package. (Use PICAFRIEND at checkout and they'll verify your membership then.)
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