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58 • The 100 Greatest Ideas for Building the Business of Your Dreams

delivering and find it hard to fit in what needs to be done in that part of the business
let alone add selling time. But that is what you must do.

Set aside an hour each week for prospecting - finding new clients - or more if
your business demands it. During this hour make your phone calls or send out your
mailshots or devise your new brilliant gimmicks for generating potential customers.
Never, ever miss it out. I always do it on a Monday morning since that tends to be
the time that other salespeople are in their weekly meetings or touching base with
their offices or whatever.

Don't waste prospecting effort. If you send out a mailshot and you are in a
business where you need to follow up with a phone call, i.e. most businesses, don't
send a huge number out at the same time. Send out enough that you have sufficient
numbers to ring to fulfil your prospecting quota. This drip-feed technique has the
added advantage that you have to go back to it on a regular basis, thus automatically
putting the hour-a-week discipline in place.

Idea 38 - Size does count

Small companies face the challenge all the time of trying to look bigger than they
are. You will use all the normal devices:

• Hold all your meetings on your customers' premises. It's terrific; you drink
their coffee and possibly get lunch as well.

• If they are coming to your location, arrange to be at a hotel either in the lobby
or in the restaurant

• Use phone forwarding so that you keep in touch. I find it quite witty to be
talking to a customer who has phoned a Berkshire number while actually I am
cooling my tootsies in a swimming pool in Spain.

• Don't stint on letterhead and design on the documents you send out. The
John Bull printing press look screams 'sole trader'.