Mining For Prospects How to sift through leads to find the right customers.

You're sitting in a meeting with a new prospect. He seems mildly interested in what you have to offer, and he isn't using any of your competitors. But at the end of the meeting, the most he'll say is, "I'll think about it." Sound familiar?

If you've been meeting with a steady stream of prospects without closing sales, the problem may be something quite common among new entrepreneurs: You may just be meeting with the wrong prospects.

I recently spoke with a business owner whose meetings with new prospects consistently yielded unsuccessful results. Every time she called a prospect and found he was buying from one of her competitors, she ended the conversation and searched for someone who had never tried her type of service. She was taking herself out of the running for the best contracts, and instead was meeting with prospects who were going to have a much longer selling curve, because they still had to be educated about the benefits of using such a service before they could choose her firm to provide it.