Jeremy Hall – Confessions of a serial entrepreneur

Prospect targeting

We are establishing a list of 500 target customers in the south of the UK. These are big companies many of whom will have recognised and established brands. Creating the list is easy, the names are in the public domain, the challenge is to find the correct contact at these companies.

Historically, finding the correct contact was difficult. Gatekeepers do not like giving out contact details of Heads of Procurement or Marketing. With the advent of LinkedIn, not only is this task an easy one to complete, but we can establish a relationship with these people of some form by linking in with them.  I find LinkedIn fascinating. You can call someone or e-mail them and they do not have the time to reply. Send them a LinkedIn message and before you know it, they will be in contact with you.

We test our strategy with BMW. Within 100 miles of where we are based, there are nine people who are linked in to people I am linked in to who currently work at BMW. I test the same idea with Aston Martin and are able to see the Head of Marketing – a business contact of someone I know. Out of those 500 target companies we are looking at, we can guarantee to find the contact we need in all those companies.

Maybe I am cheating. With the Who’s Who brand behind me, more often than not, people will want to connect with me. It will give them access to other successful people and without beefing up my own importance, from what I have seen so far, individuals want to be linked to the Chairman of Who’s Who. By sending an “InMail” or message via LinkedIn, not only will I increase my contact base by 500 people, but also now have some sort of relationship with them to build a business relationship with.