Getting to Business Owners Cheaply

I have a couple different issues with the way you are going about it Millard...

First off I think trying to get out of prospecting as cheaply as possibly isn't the answer. And I'm not necessarily talking about "customer acquisition" costs either but "prospecting" costs.

At this point do you have any idea of what your "product" is and what your profit margin will be? That's obviously key. Next comes trying to figure out the lifetime value of a customer-- not a prospect but a customer.

From there you can determine how much you can afford to spend on your prospecting and ultimately customer acquisition.

From my perspective I've found the more you can afford to spend on prospecting the better. "Cut-rate" methods of prospecting leads to "cut-rate" clients.

The second thing that I'm not particularly big on is the use of your personal time for prospecting. To me that's a huge waste of your most valuable commodity which isn't your money but your time. All of us are far too guilty of throwing our own personal time at problems such as prospecting when money is a cheaper alternative and ultimately will force you into creating a "system" for your prospecting. You going out and networking with people, without "sifting" out the non-prospects before hand is perhaps the worst "system" you can have-- incredibly inefficient.

I'm curious-- you said you are "qualifying" clients every step of the way-- what sort of methods are you using?