In working with business owners and entrepreneurs over the years, I’ve noticed that when it comes to acquiring new customers, most of them are hunters. They pounce on new leads, chase the prospects, make themselves readily available to the prospect and then bend over backwards to land the new customer.
On the other hand, I’ve noticed that the most successful business owners and entrepreneurs take a different approach to customer acquisition: they are harvesters. They gather in all their leads, work hard to prevent any from slipping through the cracks, cultivate those leads and then harvest them when the time is right for the customer.
The most interesting thing about these two styles is that the hunter usually gets tired, a bit humiliated and ends up getting small margins. On the other hand, the harvester stays fresh, confident and usually earns higher margins.
What I’ve described here is the difference between a sales mentality (hunter) and a marketing mentality (harvester). Every business owner or entrepreneur who experiences some level of success has hunting skills… and that’s good. But the difference between minor success and major success is the difference between hunting and harvesting.
Oh, and just so we’re clear… I’m not saying that harvesting is an easy, non-aggressive job. When it’s time to harvest, you swing the sickle sharp and fast.
Happy harvesting!
Clate
I totally agree with your comments. Many times we get caught in the hunting mode with no results. I recently went fishing for a whole week. We tried various baits, lures, hooks, and riggings to catch the fish. Some days were good. Some days were better. When the fish were ready to eat, they would bite. Many people were not catching the fish because they didn’t know how to hook the fish. The key is to let the fish have some line and give them what they want, which is the bait. If the fish are biting on worms, don’t use minnows! Go get worms!
Mark Weber
Comment by Mark Weber — June 24, 2008 @ 9:37 am
Clate;
Sir, I wanted to personally send an e-mail, but could not find your contact information and thank Infusionsoft and yourself for caring about small businesses and the crisis which is affecting them in every country, because they are the backbone of a country’s economic and future growth, but so many of them never survive or even make a profit. You and your organization are the “soldiers” in a fight to start and help small businesses.
I would like to send to you “MY little BLACK BOOK TO SUCCESS”(from Tate Publishing)”, in which I identify core areas for businesses to increase their success rates and offer proven blueprints for small to medium sized business in operations, sales and marketing, human resources, and accounting departments. In this book I present hands-on, ready to implement strategies to increase the success rates of your members’ small and mid-sized businesses and only ask that you take a moment to review my information. Afterwards, if you believe that this book can be used by your members to increase their success rates, thus strengthening the economy and everyone’s future, would you please conduct a book review and list it as a recommend reading resource!
After your review of my book and the Mission, your organization would like to discuss future opportunities with me; I would welcome hearing from you and/or someone from your organization, so that your members’ small businesses can be more successful. Here are just some of the ways that we can work together, but I am open to any other avenues that your organization believes will increase your members’ success rates.
· Nationwide Workshops
· National Conferences
· Nationwide Business Boot Camps
· Nationwide Seminars
· Tele-Seminars/Webinars
· Podcasts
· TV/Radio Shows
· Any Audio and/or Video Formats and Production Vehicles
· On-Going Articles and Advice For Your Newsletter/Website/Publication
Thank you for your time and attention and I look forward to your reply on how to best send you my book for your consideration, make it a great day.
Comment by Tom Marquardt, The Profit Repairman — June 27, 2008 @ 8:53 am