Think about the top businesses you follow. Apple, Ferrari, Samsung, Tesla, McDonald’s, etc. They all have what are called ‘search parties’. They don’t work in the sense of trying to find something or someone that’s missing. They are instead, teams that go out around the world, looking for partners and clients. Whether the boss wants to work with other businesses or investors, these teams are working around the clock to pave the future for the business. It’s incredibly crucial to have such teams when you massive corporations that want to merge and learn from other professionals and similar multinationals. But what if you’re just a small business and you’re trying to search for an entity to work with and you don’t have any sort of search party team?
A scouting team
What search parties really are, is a mixture of marketing, sales and research and development professionals. They’re taken from their departments and set up as a separate team. They still work with their departments but they only do so to collect information. The CEO directly gives them orders and sends them off into the world, to jet-set and globe-trot in order to find what the boss wants. Yet, on the other hand, can start things off with a scouting team. Anyone can be a part of it, you don’t need specialists of any kind. The trick is to hammer into your employees’ minds that they need to snoop around and mingle with different businesses and potential clients. Go to clubs and bars where professionals hang out after work and get talking. Just make links wherever you can but do so, constantly.
Meet them online
Scouting around the city or searching around the world is one thing, but searching online is another. Some might say that the latter is all you need to do in order to find a client. However, don’t discount how valuable it is to speak to people face-to-face. And yet, you should begin your search by reading these 10 Tips for B2B Websites. Your hope is to find a B2B client that wishes to partner with you on a certain project. Then you need to lure them in and create a proposition that they cannot get out of their minds. This means not pressuring them, not giving them too many details but just enough so they bite. You’ll also need to make a strong call-to-action (CTA). Inform but don’t overwhelm and most of all, write brilliant content that gives potential clients every reason to contact you first.
Invite them over
The classic way of finding potential partners is going to business exhibitions and industry events. This is good but there are so many other things going on at the same time, B2B clients won’t have time to focus purely on you. So, the best thing you can do is invite them over to your business. Provide the whole sha-bang. Fly them over, put them up in a hotel and give them a guide of your office and work areas. Show them what they could be missing out on.
Searching for a partner has been made easier by modern technology but you still have to do the legwork. Make all your relevant employees aware that you’re searching for a B2B client, so they can get working in different social and professional circles outside of work too.
