Always Be Looking for New Business Opportunities

My broth­er for­ward­ed me a com­pa­ny email he received from the VP of his com­pa­ny. He works for a large com­mer­cial devel­op­er on the west coast. I’ll para­phrase and sum­ma­rize the con­clu­sion of the email from the vice pres­i­dent which I felt was a great reminder for any busi­ness in today’s econ­o­my:

Let’s keep our eyes and ears open for new oppor­tu­ni­ties from clients and through your connections/​networks. Do not let a phone call or con­ver­sa­tion end with­out ask­ing ​“So, what else is going on out there that we should be look­ing at?” …And when you do hear about some­thing, try to col­lect some basic infor­ma­tion: What, where, when, why, how, who…

You might think this is com­mon sense, but I sure do not hear it much these days (and I don’t prac­tice it much myself: but I should). It is a great reminder for me, and I’m pass­ing it on to you. I have done this before and had oth­ers do it to me…and it works. It is a way to ask for refer­rals, in a nice way! Exam­ple, a remod­el­er, when fin­ish­ing up a job to a hap­py client can end the call with, ​“Appre­ci­ate you work­ing with my com­pa­ny Mrs. Jones. By the way, have you heard any of your friends dis­cuss when they might be doing a remod­el?” Have you had suc­cess using a sim­i­lar ​“close” to a con­ver­sa­tion? Love to hear about it.