Prospects
In this light, one group of suspects for your photography business would be parents of newborns (a recent change). You can identify them by scanning each day’s birth announcements in the local newspaper. Using the names provided there, you go to the telephone directory to look up their addresses and telephone numbers. You now have a suspect list. For our continuing example, let’s say you’ve found 12 new parents in today’s newspaper. From among these suspects you want to quickly identify prospects. Two characteristics define prospects: 1.) they are found only among suspects; and 2.) based on your preliminary research, you realize they will benefit from your product.
A call to each suspect produces the following results:
- Two have arranged with other photographers to get pictures taken of their newborns.
- One insists the father can take very acceptable pictures of his new child.
- One objects on religious grounds to taking pictures of young children.
- Eight have made no arrangements to have photographs taken of the newborns.
Those last eight people are your prospects. You know you can do a bang-up job taking pictures of their babies, and your experience tells you that as parents of newborns, they will want to get pictures taken.