Your topic should fit a narrowly defined group. Thus, for example, you might want to conduct quarterly seminars to carefully selected groups of professional advisers. Present one or two products or concepts, and illustrate what they can do for your prospective clients.

In a seminar or workshop, the only thing you're selling is yourself. Your objectives are to provide some useful information, make yourself known to a select group of prospective clients, and to offer to meet with attendees individually. In fact, you should follow-up with everyone who attended within 48 hours. That's about as long as the seminar "glow" lasts.

"Checkbook" prospecting — Go through your checkbooks and write down the names of local businessowners or professional practitioners you've written checks to in the past 18 months. Also, check your cash receipts and credit card invoices. Then, the next time you give these people your business, ask for theirs!

Personal observation — Personal observation, or "prospecting by walking around", is a great way to find business market prospects, and can be a lot of fun (for a description of this technique, see the "face-to-face" approach in the next section). Businesses and businessowners are everywhere. Their doors are usually open, and they're used to people stopping in during business hours. Again, for best results, this is something you should be doing everyday between scheduled meetings, and the more you do it, the better you'll get.

Most businessowners or professionals you'll meet socially are not too shy to talk about themselves. All you have to do is ask these magic questions:

• "What type of business/practice do you have?"


• "How did you get started?"


• "How's it going?"