I've been talking to a few business owners this week about how to develop their business. We've talked extensively about prospecting and it keeps striking me that the #1 ingredient to successful prospecting for them is going to be the quality of their prospect list.

A little while back I may have picked your value proposition as the #1 ingredient in a successful prospecting program but now I put the prospect list first and the value proposition second (but of course both better be really good or your conversion/sales stats are going to suck!)

The tough part about having a great list of people to call is it takes a lot of work. A great list is like love - you can't buy it! Going out to list brokers or online systems (even the "Sales 2.0" ones like Jigsaw or Spoke) won't get you a list that will perform that well (although you can start there). Lists need a ton of cleaning and nurturing -- constantly.

Only after you've spent a lot of time and effort defining the profile of who you need to call. And spent tons of time on cleaning your list. And then spent ages on calling people and nurturing the heck out of them, will you have a list that you will start to appreciate...your "house" list.

You can't buy a list that will work well. You have to develop it with love!