The proof of the pudding is not in the tasting but in whether people return for a second helping. You can get anyone to try a bite of your favorite recipe, but if they don't care for it, getting them to take that second bite is going to be tough. The same is true with prospecting for customers. Getting new customers is simply a function of your willingness to spend on promotion and advertising, and to do cost-cutting and giveaways to bring them in the door. If you do all that, you can get the new customers. The question, however, is whether you can get them back again.
ACTION ITEM
Develop a system to track repeat business and customer longevity. This will help you identify why customers leave and why they come back.
While visiting a new church in our area, I was interested to notice that, although this beautiful facility had been there for many years, there weren't enough parishioners at the Sunday morning service to fill more than a few pews. Something was wrong. At the end of the service, the pastor asked us to sign a visitor logbook. The book was filled with pages showing that visitors had signed in, gone out the door, and never come back. The problem with this church was not that they weren't getting prospects; it was that they weren't converting them to customers. Keep your focus, not just on the first sale, but on the second and all future sales. If you don't get repeat business, you're never going to be successful as a prospector, because repeat business is the proof of the pudding.