Written by Jamie May
Before you spend another dollar finding new prospects, open your contacts and have an honest look at what’s already in there.
Ex-clients. People you quoted twelve months ago who never got back to you. Customers you did great work for three years ago and somehow lost touch with. That list is not dead. A dormant list is a lot easier to wake up than cold.
Ex-Clients Who Left
People stop service for all sorts of reasons that have nothing to do with you. Budget got cut. They went with a cheaper option and regretted it. The person who championed your work moved on and the relationship died with them. Their business changed direction and the timing wasn’t right. Don’t take it personal, for me most ex-clients circle back at some point when they realise what they had.
Reaching out to an ex-client is not desperate. It’s sensible. A short message acknowledging the gap and expressing genuine interest in catching up costs nothing and occasionally lands at exactly the right moment. If nothing you can ask for a referral, reference or review.
“Hi Sarah, it’s been a while since we worked together. I’ve been thinking about some of the challenges you were dealing with at the time and wanted to see how things are tracking. Worth a quick catch up?”
“Hi John, we spoke three months ago and you went with our competition, with 20/20 hindsight do you think it was the right choice?”
That’s it. No hard sell, no awkward explanation of why you broke up. Just a human reaching out. Unlike dating advice of never getting back with an ex, business is not a matter of the heart.
These are among the easiest calls you’ll ever make because there’s no bad history to navigate. You did good work together. Reaching out is natural. Check in genuinely. Ask how the business is going. You don’t need an agenda beyond re-establishing the connection. If there’s an opportunity it will surface in the conversation.
Old Proposals That Never Converted
This one is underrated. Go back through every proposal you sent in the last one to two years that didn’t close. Not the ones that got a hard no, but the ones that just went quiet.
Time kills all deals. But a prospect who couldn’t move forward eight months ago because of budget, internal politics, or competing priorities may be in a completely different position today. They already know what you do. You already did the sales work of understanding their problem. The proposal is sitting there ready to be updated. Or there may be a whole new field of opportunities that have arisen. You will occasionally be surprised by how often it has.
The Takeaway
Block out three hours this week and go through three lists. Ex-clients, lapsed contacts, and unconverted proposals from the last eighteen months. Write down anyone worth reaching out to and send ten messages before the week is out.
Sales is about building. Building trust, building relationships, building momentum. Stop building the foundations only.
