It is important to note that the quantity of letters you send or calls you make is not important. The quality of contacts you reach is more important. It is more important to produce a large number of sales, not to see how many times you can make the phone ring.

As a matter of fact, if your marketing produces too many responses that are not of high quality, then your marketing may actually be producing negative results. You will spend so much time trying to sift through the responses in order to find something of quality, that you will not have the time to spend converting the good prospects into customers. If you wind up converting a lead, you also may not be able to deliver great customer service because you will lack time.

What constitutes a quality lead? The best example is marketing to your closest friends and previous customers. These are the people with whom you have the strongest relationships. Marketing to this segment of your sphere of influence will produce the strongest referrals and these referrals will take less time to convert in the sales process. You will need to spend less time building credibility and you can start immediately developing a relationship. Stronger referrals generally produce higher quality leads.

Another factor mentioned in the previous letter concerns the need of the prospect. If there is a real need and a motivation to meet this need, the lead will be of higher quality. This is why targeted marketing is so important. The better you pinpoint the target, the more likely the responses will be just what you need. Timing is important for this targeting process. You can send the right letter to the right person at the wrong time and receive no response. For example, do not solicit CPAs for partnership arrangements in April—obviously.