In all businesses - large and small, new clients are the heart beat to growth. Without it, businesses wither and die.

I was Managing Partner and New Business Director of an advertising agency. We went from zero, remortgaging my house and no clients to billings of £48m in 17 years.

It took me too long to work out that mailing brochures and telling potential clients what I wanted to tell them, just wasn’t an efficient way of gaining new clients. That strategy could work sometimes but it depended on happening to hit the potential client just at the time when they were unhappy.

People do things for their reasons - not yours. Buyers buy for their reasons - not those of the sales person. So let me share with you one, absolutely-guaranteed-to-succeed strategy that I used over and over again in B2B to gain new clients, maintain & develop those key relationships.

It’s a technique I still use to this day - every day. In many respects it’s simple but it requires constant, diligent effort and to have what I call my ‘antenna’ always on the alert. It’s this:

“I saw this and thought of you”

Let’s say - like one of my current clients - you are a wine wholesaler. Your potential clients are restaurants, clubs and bars but they already have a wine supplier and are happy with the service. No amount of telling them you can also provide wine will win them over unless you happen to contact them when they have a problem.

So what is a restaurant owner or golf club catering manager interested in? How to maximise income from each diner and attract new customers. So I found some information on menu psychology and how it could be used to maximise income. I sent this to the wine wholesaler, whose sales team gave this information - bit by bit - to their potential clients.

“I saw this and thought of you”

I also found research showing how waiters can maximise on tips. This too was drip fed to their potential clients. Indebtedness was built up and meetings were set up. Conversion followed.

When I worked in advertising, I would carry out research on a particular market sector where we wanted to win clients. One particularly effective example was in the bathroom market where we researched consumers’ attitudes to various bathroom advertising.

I used this information to contact each manufacturer and say “We did this and thought of you.” In other words, would you like some information - for free - showing what consumers think of your advertising and that of your competitors? Meetings followed and we gained three new clients, Adamsez, Ideal Standard and Plumb Center.

In today’s world where everything can be Googled, buyers increasingly EXPECT sales people to have gone to some effort to find out about them. We all know things can be personalised easily, so what buyers are really saying is “Show me you know me”.  They are not interested in what you have to tell them until they feel you have made some effort to find out something about them.

"Every newspaper and magazine I EVER read I’m looking for something that might be of interest to a client or potential"

But there is more to it than just deciding on one particular day that you need to think about what one particular client might be interested in. Which is why I say my ‘antenna’ is always on the alert. Any good sales person will have a target list - within the list there is usually some kind of tiered system of importance or need.

‘A’ potentials are those who you really want to do business with for monetary reasons or market sector reasons. Then there are ‘B’ potentials that you would like but they don’t have the same priority as ‘A’s and so on. Most companies have three levels of potential clients.

The key thing is that every sales person needs to always be aware and knowledgeable about potential clients and have their ‘antenna’ on the alert for information that a potential client might be interested in.

For example I subscribe to Which magazine. I don’t really care much whether one kettle is better than another - what I’m interested in is information within each edition that might be of interest to an existing or potential client.

Everyone is interested in something, so read up and send something useful their way

For example if there’s a report on UK banks I’ll tear it out, copy it and send it to all my clients and potential clients who work in banks - all over the world with a little note - perhaps a comment - and “I saw this and thought of you”.

Every newspaper and magazine I EVER read I’m looking for something that might be of interest to a client or potential. Which is why I say that in many respects it’s simple but requires constant, diligent effort and to have the ‘antenna’ on alert.

It can be done by email but a hand-written note is so much more powerful.

And then you need to have a spread sheet with which clients you’ve contacted with what and when. And keep it up to date. That too requires constant, diligent effort

To paraphrase former USA President Calvin Coolidge nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not, genius will not and education will not. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. “I saw this and thought of you” has gained me many clients and continues to help me develop relationship with client and always will.

Philip Hesketh’s new book, Persuade - Using the seven drivers of motivation to master influence and persuasion (published by Capstone) is now available.