Whenever Bob Jiguere wanted me to know how important it was that I listen to him, he would preface the advice with, “If you were my own son, I’d tell you to….” I also watched him on sales calls when he told the woman that he was talking to, “If you were my own sister, I’d tell you…” Think about how strong that is. Wouldn’t you give your best advice to your son or your sister? (or your daughter or your brother?)

So, would you like to know my latest advice to my son? Here’s the exchange.

From, my son, Matt, to a fellow alum that’s gonna do some bizdev for him.

Joe, I had a good conversation with my Dad about sales. He is going to send us some info he thinks will be helpful. He would be a good resource for you to use to help bring a few clients on. He is cc’d on this email and his cell is (###) Thanks, Matt

My reply to both.

Gentlemen, There’s a few different ways to get new clients.

    • Spend tons of money on advertising.
    • Make 1,000 cold calls. (This is the way I built my agency in the 80’s.)
    • Go where your prospects are hanging out, have a beer and collect business cards.

When I looked at this website, www.saltlakechamber.org/calendar/ I saw three types of events that seemed interesting. There’s a Business after Hours almost every month. Bring business cards, but it’s more important to get theirs. I’ll coach you before you go. My goal is typically to get 10-15 business cards per hour that I’m there. Two hours – 30 cards. There’s also a program called Networking without limits that’s probably worth checking out once. The best program is the Expo. 4 hours on May 14th. 70 booths. 600 people walking the aisles like you. Everybody looking to connect. We need to talk about your approach to this, but you won’t have any problems. Also, I would imagine that if you call the chamber and ask them how do you check them out, they’ll probably invite you to an event or two as their guests. I’d look for other chambers of commerce (Sandy, Park City, others?).

Get on LinkedIn. Follow the directions to invite people in your address book to connect with you, but ONLY invite people that are already in LinkedIn. You don’t want to spend a lot of time teaching them how to use it. If some of your existing clients are on LinkedIn and happy with your service, they can write a recommendation which will become part of your profile and the world will be able to see it. Another way that you can use LinkedIn is to search for people that might be prospects. For instance, my search for property managers in SLC area yielded 470 results. I searched Utah Business in the Groups Directory. 39 Results. One of them was Utah First Friday. This is their website. Might be interesting. You should check out the other 38 results and do some other searches. See what you find. You have to ask to join the groups, but the groups will grow your exposure and connections. There’s other ways to use LinkedIn, but that’s a start. Dad

Matt’s response.

Thanks Dad we will get on it. Matt

Enough said?

One more thing.

Did you follow the link to my brother? In August of 2007, he bought his place in St. Croix and thanked me fortelling him to double his hourly rate. Today, I was copied on this email from him.

Hi Doris, We have scheduled flights for arrival on the 6th of April. Please cease rental scheduling from that time until further notice. I intend to try to expand my Information Technology Consulting business on the island at that time, and if all goes as I expect, I will be staying to look for permanent residence while Tina returns to deal with stateside moving tasks. Hopefully the unit will be available again in a short period of time. Also, please be advised that on March 1st at about 12 to 12:30 Best Furniture will be delivering a new sofa to our unit. I’ve informed the front desk that our friend Sue Ferguson will be there to oversee the task in our absence. They will be removing the old sofa and chair. Vic Roberge

He’s moving to St. Croix? Maybe, I’m too good.