List Brokers

You start a great company with a great idea. However, you still need capital to get it off the ground or to grow it to the next level. Many of us turn to lists and list brokers. In my experience, list brokers, at least the good ones, will want to know what your company does and will often ask to review your business plan. They are fantastic resources to help you identify your target market because they want to sell you a list of leads that will help you obtain your fund raising goals, and come back for more.

Not only will they help you identify the best category(s) markets to sell your product to, but they will often try to teach you how based on what has worked from their other clients.

As an example, B.Z. Khasru of http://www.informationcompanyinc.com/products.html explained to me that Family Offices were the best group for me to market to. We were going to do an email campaign and had already done so before with another list without much success. He told straight out, "you have to show up and talk to someone face to face to get anywhere with a family office". I followed his advice and the very first family office I visited ended up allocating assets towards our investment fund within 60 days.

Now the big question, what do these lists actually cost? I've seen perfectly good lists sell for as little as .25 cents a name all the way up to $25 a name. Its very hard to determine how good a list is before you buy it. I would suggest asking for referrals from the list broker to people who have bought the list. If they won't give you a referral, go to the next guy. I always suggest only buying the minimum number you can get away with as well so you can see for yourself how accurate and how good the list might be for your purposes. If too many people have the list, your prospects may be very unreceptive to more sales calls. Also, using lists helps you refine your marketing approach and train your employees to sell.

In summary, use list brokers to research your target markets and train you on how to sell to those markets. Do your homework on a list before you buy it, and test the list with the minimum number os leads you can buy to get started.

To your Wealth!
Russell Roesner
http://www.equitycoalition.com/