What Is The Best Form of Prospecting for New Clients on Weekends?

First many different types of businesses are open on the weekends
so you could focus on those.

Second you could simply book times to see prospects on the
weekends.

If you get your posture right (eg. I'm busy all week so if you'd like to
talk we'd really need to get together on a Saturday).

That will make you seem like you're busy and in demand.

Kindest regards,
Andrew Cavanagh

Golf!

Seriously.

Think about how many business relationships are created over a game of golf.

And not just golf, but do some research on your targets and find out what their interests and passions are.

Find out what they are interested in that is in common with what you are interested in, and use that to a way to reach out and connect with them.

Or find out what they would like to do but they haven't yet done that you already do.

For example, maybe they are looking to start volunteering for a local charity and you already do. Well you could invite them to join you one weekend, they will get to experience what it is like to volunteer and you will get the chance to meet and talk with them without the dreaded gatekeeper standing in the way.

Or let's say that you both have a passion for inline skating, or kayaking, or skeet shooting, or riding horses, or animal protection, you can use that common interest as a way to reach out to them.

There are a lot of ways to make a connection with someone other than sitting behind your computer and blasting out a thousand emails, or sitting at your desk and making those 100 cold calls.

I'm not saying this will bring in a load of business, nor am I saying you will sell them right away, but spending all your time in your office or home doing the same cold calls or email blasts will eventually cause you to burn out.

Getting out of the office or home and sharing your passions or experiencing someone else's passion can keep your interest, desire, enjoyment for your business up, and might ignite your creativity or motivation in ways cold calling or blasting out emails never will.

My personal opinion is to keep these type of "meetings" informal. I wouldn't try and sell them the first time I meet them. But the point would be to get my message to them, not necessarily in pitch form, but through casual conversation.

Then come Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday you could follow up with them to set the real appointment.

Imagine doing your follow up call and when the gatekeeper asks, "What is this about?" and you say, "oh just tell him it is Jim, we played a round of gold this weekend" or "Just tell him it's Jim, I want to talk to him about something we discussed on Saturday."

How easy do you think it will be to get past the gatekeeper with that kind of response?

And when they get on the phone you can say something like, "Hey Bob, it's Jim. I was thinking about some of the things that you mentioned about your business, and I was curious so I looked over your website and you know what? I might have some ideas about how you can get more customers through your front door."

Or, "Hey Bob, it's Jim. I know this weekend you mentioned X, and it got me thinking, and you know what? I might have some ideas on how you can solve that problem."

Obviously you can still do your main marketing activities during the weekday, cold calling, direct mail, email blasts, and keep this for the weekends.

You could even use it as a backup strategy to try and reach out to those who weren't responsive to your cold call, or email, or direct mail.

If someone hangs up on you when you cold call them, don't drop them from your list assuming they weren't interested, (unless they heard your pitch and then said no) instead test out reaching out to them in a different way.

Sometimes thinking outside the box (or should that be outside the office) is what it is going to take.

If you are to meet people for business on weekends, just make it light. After a long week of work, your prospects will most likely want to chill down and take time off work. Nothing puts people more that being approached during your free time to talk business.