Why You Should Never Slow Down Your Prospecting Efforts

Article by Wendy McCance

What happens when you have your own business, find success and hit a roadblock that brings your business to a screeching halt? If you were meant to be in business for yourself, you pick yourself back up, dust yourself off and move forward again.

In 2012 I started a blog and by the end of the year I was writing articles and providing clients with social media management. I never meant to become a writer, and social media wasn’t anywhere on my radar, but as I blogged, a whole new world opened up for me including job offers to write and provide social media consulting and management. I was hooked and my business took off.

By the summer of 2014 I was making enough money that my husband was able to back off of working full-time so that he could focus his efforts on learning computer programming. It was an exciting time and it all happened so quickly it was hard to believe I was still in the early stages of my own business.

2015 presented a problem that were not only unforeseen, but brought my business to a quiet puttering along as my health took center stage for several months.

It’s been difficult to climb out of such a dark place, put worry aside and regain focus on my business. Yet, here I am at 5:47 am after 3 hours of sleep back up and typing away on this blog. I have found the passion and energy again to put all of my effort back into business and it’s exciting.

I have had my share of doubtful moments as I worked on getting that momentum going again. Thank goodness I have the support of my husband who is fairly quiet about my business, but will jump in on occasion with a few needed wise words of advice.

As I have been working to get my business rolling again, I’ve been catching up on what has been trending in social media these last few months as well as spending endless hours prospecting for new business.

After one busy day shuttling kids around, making dinner and spending 5 hours prospecting for clients, I ended my evening with a glass of wine and a spot sitting on the porch. My husband joined me and I began pouring out my worries of how my business would never be what it used to be. I felt so defeated. Days of endless prospecting hadn’t resulted in much interest. I used to be able to calculate how many emails I would need to send out to get back a certain number of positive responses. I could then figure out how many of those responses would result in a meeting and then how many of those meetings would land me a job. I was definitely proficient at the numbers game.

So there I was drinking away my sorrows and feeling like that break in my momentum had wiped out any further success. My husband, the quiet guy who would listen to my worries but say very little came to my rescue. He reminded me that it would take a while for the shift to happen. Just because I was working my butt off prospecting didn’t mean I would get a response overnight. It would take some time for the momentum to build and all that hard work to begin paying off. I was used to prospecting several times each week and it was the buildup of months and quite frankly years of putting out emails that eventually began showing evidence of all the effort that had been put in.

It’s ironic how quickly you forget just how much time and energy goes into building a business. It takes continuous work to keep it thriving. Just a few months of not reaching out for new business really does have a profound affect on the health of your company.

I got lucky. I was reminded of an important lesson. Although I had been great at prospecting before, it took very little time off to forget just how much work goes into staying on top of prospecting efforts. Now, I am feeling even more determined. I have remembered just what it takes to get to the level I was at before and I am up for the challenge. Take my word for it, if not for continuous prospecting, you will end up with some good months certainly, but you will also have huge dips in your business where income becomes scarce and where the landscape seems barren. Personally, I never want to see a barren landscape again!

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Wendy McCance

Wendy McCance is a Michigan based freelance writer and social media consultant. Wendy has gained attention as the founder of the popular blog Searching for the Happiness which can be viewed in 9 local papers online, including the Oakland Press. The combination of writing skills and social media knowledge is what makes Wendy such a powerhouse to work with. Stay tuned for opportunities to advertise, guest post and as always, have your questions answered.

To contact Wendy McCance about a writing or social media assignment, interview or speaking engagement, please email her at: [email protected]