Identifying Target Customers

9 replies
I'm hoping someone can point me in the right direction here. We are wanting to start prospecting via cold email for small businesses that have expenses in the $15,000 to $60,000 per month range.

Ideally, these would be businesses that have been in business around 2 to 7 years. These companies are achieving growth but don't yet have all of their processes worked out and are open to outsourcing some of their day to day tasks to reduce time and expenses.

I am completely new to this type of outbound sales prospecting and really have no idea how one could go about putting together a good list for this. In fact, I don't even know what my question is other than... If you were searching the internet for companies who may meet this criteria, how would you go about it? What filters would you use to make your search less daunting.
#customers #identifying #target
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  • Profile picture of the author Ron Lafuddy
    Originally Posted by ultralast View Post

    These companies are achieving growth but don't yet have all of their processes worked out and are open to outsourcing some of their day to day tasks to reduce time and expenses.
    Big Question: How would you know any of this without talking to them?
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    • Profile picture of the author ultralast
      That's part of the qualification process. But before I can begin qualifying people i need to first find them. That's why I am hoping to get some advice on how to put together a list of business owners who are more likely to fit this description.
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  • Profile picture of the author ewenmack
    I rent out lists with those filters, except the growth filter.

    Best,
    Ewen
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  • Profile picture of the author 786miller
    I agree with[QUOTE]Ron Lafuddy 10 hours ago
    Originally Posted by ultralast View Post

    These companies are achieving growth but don't yet have all of their processes worked out and are open to outsourcing some of their day to day tasks to reduce time and expenses.
    Big Question: How would you know any of this without talking to them? [/QUOTE
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  • Profile picture of the author savidge4
    I'm not an overly big fan of cold emails... I am not saying I don't do it.. but only when what it is I am pushing, warrants the use.

    The thing with cold emailing.. it truly is a numbers game. and when I say this.. I am saying your list needs to be in the 10's of thousands.. the hundreds of thousands to make it work. I know guys that blast off insane amount of emails daily.. in search of that half a percent response rate.. and then widle down to maybe 1 to 3% of that

    So you have a list of 1 million... a half of a percent gives you 5000 responses. a 1% close rate then gives you 50 sales.

    So lets just throw a number out here. it takes a server 1 second per e-mail... 24 hours in a day. 60 minutes in an hour. 60 seconds in an hour. you will send 86,400 emails per day. It will take you 11.5 days +/- to send to that list. To be honest.. those are some strong numbers.. it takes longer than that.

    With your target.. yes you could probably develop a list that large. BUT after 50 sales.. then what?

    So lets knock the numbers back to a more realistic number. you buy a cold list of 10,000 you get a 1% response rate. you then take that 100 and close 3% your doing good... that's 3 SALES. Then you need to start looking at value of life of customer ect and determine if this is truly the route for you.

    There has to be a better way.. there IS ALWAYS a better way.

    I am not even coming close to saying don't try it, to be honest that would foolish ( not to ) but what I am saying is don't place all your eggs in one basket, and diversify your onboarding needs with a short term ( cold email ) and a long term ( content marketing ) advertising effort.
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  • Profile picture of the author Kherk Roldan
    Originally Posted by ultralast View Post


    If you were searching the internet for companies who may meet this criteria, how would you go about it?

    .
    You need to setup qualifying questions to understand your prospects goal, this is for you to understand if this company have a budget and also a good fit to work with you
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  • Profile picture of the author JohnMcCabe
    Originally Posted by ultralast View Post

    I am completely new to this type of outbound sales prospecting and really have no idea how one could go about putting together a good list for this. In fact, I don't even know what my question is other than... If you were searching the internet for companies who may meet this criteria, how would you go about it? What filters would you use to make your search less daunting.
    First off, cold emailing may be the least efficient process you could possibly use, unless you enjoy being ignored or fielding spam complaints.

    As for putting together a prospect list in general, Google will not be your friend.

    Use a two step process. Use Google to find professional and trade associations. For example, most states have a manufacturer's directory listing the manufacturing companies along with data like when they started and what their annual revenue is. You can also use data from trade associations to get ranges for typical expense averages.

    Once you have a list of target companies, you then have to find the right person to contact. For example, sending a cold email to controller@example.com will be less effective than to JoeBEancounter@example.com.

    LinkedIn might also be a good source for company data if the company has a good profile on the site.

    One more tip - try to be specific when approaching a company. Instead of saying "hire us to lower your expenses" (way too generic and hard to believe), say "hire us to lower your utility bills [or shipping expenses, scrap costs, etc.]" Once you get your foot in the door, you can then say something like "we also have a specialist in [something else] - would you like them to take a look and see if we might be able to help you?"
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  • Profile picture of the author umc
    You could just stand outside of the big building with the red bullseye on it.
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  • Profile picture of the author sandrarenee
    Short of hiring a company to do this for you - that has access to the date and can create the filters you desire, I think this is a challenge. Here is an article from the Library of Congress on searching for businesses - maybe it will be of aid or lead you to something.
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