Prospecting Faces

In about 43,000 scientific experiments a year, we look for answers to our problems in the bodies and brains of mice.

Dozens of COVID-19 vaccines are being tested on mice right now. I believe one of them will work.

Meanwhile, one research study sees physiological changes in the brains of mice as they acquire expertise.

When learning a new task, brain activities alter over time as mice transition to an expert from a novice. The changes are reflected in neural networks and neural activity. As the animal’s knowledge grows, neural networks become more focused. 

Why bring this up now, in relation to prospecting?

Because if there’s any marketing activity that instamorphs the brain, it is prospecting. 

One trick that larger companies use to enforce non-linear, holistic thinking is having everyone do customer support for X number of weeks per year. Sometimes starting out.

Comprehensive prospecting could work the same way – especially if you get beyond demographic profiling and try to get personal: look at faces and listen to what’s said on forums.

When you prospect people who might buy your solution, you might find yourself:

• Imagining a conversation with
• Repeating the same words as they use to describe their problem
• Calculating their revenue and overhead, and imagining where your solution fits in
• Picturing their success

Fictional Case Study 

Let’s say car dealers in states with restrictive lockdowns, such as California, are getting just 10% of the foot traffic they were used to pre-pandemic. And the local newspapers just went out of business.

The economy is shrinking, yes, but some people still need cars – how do car dealers reach them?

You decide to create a niched-down rideshare ad platform like Vugo that lets car dealers advertise to Lyft and Uber passengers through an Ipad mounted onto the back of the passenger and driver seats. 

Who are your prospective customers? Secondarily, Lyft and Uber drivers who sell ad space. But your primary buyers are owners or executives car dealerships in California:

Step 1 is pulling up a list of faces (LinkedIn Sales Navigator is great here), step 2 is finding out what they are complaining about and where. Step 3 is letting your brain’s neural networks morph like a mouse expert.

My best,
Rowan