Let’s say you are in planning stages of starting a collection agency. (Your clients could be lawyers, building contractors, clothing manufacturers, etc.) How do you find out what your potential clients want and position your firm for future sales?

Even if you don’t have a fully defined service you can still demonstrate your expertise through quality of questions you ask. No one knows all answers and bluffing is a poor way to build a business. Use questions to prompt prospects’ thinking. Then use your expertise to synthesize common problems and solutions and prospects will be impressed. While your products and services are vehicles that will earn you money, your expertise is what will help you become a trusted advisor and service provider.

If you don’t know what your prospects want, ask them. Put together a list of ten to twenty-five questions. Avoid using “either or” types of questions and create a list of open-ended questions which encourage prospects to discuss their collection concerns. Ask questions to clarify common collection problems, their importance and what prospects want to do about them.

To make your message stand out, you need to be what Seth Godin describes as a purple cow. He points out that if you're driving down a busy highway, and pass a purple cow grazing in a pasture, you would have to take notice. You'd say, "There's a purple cow." And then you'd stop and take a closer look. Your email messages to your customers and prospects need to stand out like a purple cow.

So many messages that we get every day aren't fully "received." We aren't fully aware of them in our environment. This point jumped out at me a few days ago as I walked my shitzu (dog). I knew there were bears in my part of Florida. There are signs posted along some of highways warning drivers. However, I had never seen one until about a week ago. I noticed several cars stopped along street where I was out walking my dog. I looked in direction of cars and there was a black bear. It was about 3 feet tall when down on all four legs! At that point message that there were bears near where I lived was fully received and felt on a very deep "gut" level. There was a loose, wild bear, about 50 yards from where I was! Fortunately, he was only interested in crossing into a nearby patch of dense vegetation.