How do I develop a sales pipeline on a shoestring?

Step #1: Upsell your current clients. It’s always easier to sell to people who already trust you and know that you can deliver.

Step #2: Get some referral accounts. After you’re revisiting your existing clients and confirmed that they’re delighted with your offering, ask them to provide you with at least two referrals. Have THEM call or email the referrals and set up (or at least suggest) the initial meeting. It is much easier to sell to referral accounts than to completely new prospects.

Step #3: Get some more referrals. Once you’ve exhausted your client base, list out every person you know who’s in the business world and who trusts you (perhaps because you’ve worked with them previously). As before, ask them to provide you with a referral and have THEM call or email the referrals to set up the initial meeting.

Step #4: Get a lead generation system. I recommend something like Insideview, which lets you build lists on the fly and prioritize them based upon events that have happened in that company and industry. If this is too expensive, you can generate pretty good list, for free, from Jigsaw. See my recent post “10 Free Online Sales Tools“