Blue Elevator Blog

Tailing Piles and Business Prospecting

To do well, a business must generate leads.  Most businesses hope lead generation is a simple process.  Spend money and get an interested customer.  Once you have an interested customer (a lead), then you must “close” the lead in order to make a sale.  Easy, right?  Notwithstanding the preceding, consider the following:

1. Traditional lead generation methods (e.g. print, radio, TV) aren’t what they used to be.
2. The cost per lead for traditional advertising seems to be increasing.
3. More and more people are spending time on social media platforms (e.g. LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, etc.).

In summary, traditional prospecting methods aren’t what they used to be.  Also, tomorrow’s customers are being engaged differently.  In this article, Blue Elevator™ will be discussing the prospecting process with a modern-day take out.

The California Gold Rush Days

Back in the day, proverbially speaking, gold was found in the American River near Sutter’s Mill.  If I remember correctly, the story was told that the initial finds were large pieces of “placer gold” laying in plain sight.  The prospecting process was simple.  Step 1, go to the river.  Step 2, wade out and pick up large chunks of gold.  Step 3, take the gold to the assay office and pocket untold fortunes.

Once the large chunks were gobbled up, the miners began using sluice boxes and man made machines to get the gold.  The miners would move gravel through some device that would separate gold from the gravel.  These methods and machines were created to efficiently extract gold from gravel and dirt.  In the process of separating gold from gravel, a lot of the methods created “tailing piles.”

Days of Old Tailing Piles

Tailing piles were mounds of gravel left behind by the mining process.  The gravel that was processed was deposited and piled up, presumably, sans the valuable gold that was extracted.  Mounds of gravel had been processed and stripped of gold, kinda.  Here is the interesting take out.  Many years later, modern-day gold prospectors found those tailing piles to be of interest.  It seemed that the “days of old” prospecting methods were less than perfect.  There was still a lot of gold in those tailing piles!

Modern Day Tailing Piles

There is no doubt, much like picking up a huge gold nugget would be fun, having a customer call you up and say they want your product or service is a great find.  More often than not, today’s business climate is more challenging than that.  For most small business owners, the days of constant and countless customers calling you up is a thing of the past.

The old lead generation methods were not much unlike the former glory days of gold prospecting.  Spend a little money on a decent pitch, and hundreds of people will line up at your door vying for your wares.  The “old school” marketing methods, however, don’t seem to be what they used to be.  Nevertheless, a lot of business owners still try these traditional methods.  They are hoping to come across a part of the river yet untouched and fill their pockets with huge nuggets of gold.

Modern Day Business Prospecting

Any more, it seems for most small business owners, the mass marketing methods have sort of “panned out.”  However, like in the former days of prospecting, there are untold fortunes sitting in tailing piles.  There are lots of leads waiting to be found and nurtured into becoming customers.

The Blue Elevator™ Way

Blue Elevator™ is in the business of helping business owners “get the gold” out of both traditional and progressive marketing and lead generation processes.  In the end, you have to generate and close leads in order to run a successful business.  Our advisory is helping business owners maximize their prospecting efforts by augmenting traditional lead generation efforts and initializing new ones.  We are enabling business owners to create more efficient “prospecting” processes and work the tailing piles.

We are enabling our clients to do the following:

1. Identify customers that almost purchased with traditional prospecting methods.
2. Implement additional (and under-utilized) lead generation methods.
3. Create “lead nurturing” processes so that the leads that almost bought are kept warm and cozy until they are ready to become customers.
4. Systematize marketing and lead generation efforts so that ALL are Web-Centric.
5. Ensure that client web sites support “lead nurturing” – and are not just an on-line sales brochure.

Summary

If you are looking to get more out of your prospecting efforts, then we invite you to Contact Us!  Blue Elevator™ is here to help you prospect and reclaim untold fortunes from your tailing piles.