It’s most important to keep in mind the “concierge level service” when approaching the potential Pros, and helping them understand that our relationship is a 2 way street. I started my career in hospitality, and one thing that has stuck with me is to never point someone in the direction, but to pass them off, face to face, to the person who can assist them. Finding Pros that understand our levels of expectation in regards to customer service, project satisfaction, and timeliness, are important to lay at the ground level.

When scouting for Pros, my approach would be threefold. First, engaging with those that have already accepted social selling as critical to their success, second, finding industry leaders that are slightly behind the curve when it comes to social selling, and thirdly, finding the "diamonds in the rough."

There is no denying that our competitors exist. I'd start with the most pertinent to our target market, those that have engaged with Porch, Houzz, AngiesList, and Yelp.

When approaching our "Early Adopters" that have utilized our competitors technology, we know that they have already been "sold" once, and don't want to be "sold" again. They are already making razor thin margins, and taking time on the phone to talk with a salesperson far away is taking dollars out of their pocket.

When engaging a potential Pro, I would want to gauge three critical aspects:

1) The length of their relationship with the competition. Has it been positive? Has the competition lived up to what they were promised?
2) What has been their experience thus far? Are they gaining clients and references? Has the technology overwhelmed them (red flag that they might not be a fit)? Are they positive overall regarding the shift in their industry?
3) Does their workload allow them to take on projects that meet our expectations? Have they become too overwhelmed with projects that they won't be able to adhere to service level agreements with our clients? A rushed job will lead to bad publicity.

Industry leaders are a potential untapped resource for us to approach. These businesses have gone above and beyond their competition, but may not have adopted social selling yet.

Membership based organizations are always promoting their members. A brief search in Detroit found me the Home Builders Association of Detroit, Young Builders Detroit, and National Association of Women in Construction (Detroit Chapter). All of these companies have large potential of being advocates in growing their business.

Social media activity, aside from our competitors, is equally important. Posting relevant, frequent information on sites like LinkedIn, Facebook, and Pinterest is a leading indicator they understand their market.

Potential Pros often fall into the small to medium sized business categories, so searching local publications for award winners can lead to engaged Pros.

Nearly every metropolitan city hosts a home show each year, and similar to membership based organizations, their exhibitors are often promoted on their website. Sourcing these sites for potential leads has potential to uncover more Pros.

Anyone who has ever been in sales can confirm that existing clients who recommend their services to a fellow business, will almost always be able to close the deal.

When prospecting a territory without being immersed in it completely, networking opportunities are critical.

Following many of the same guidelines for finding future Pros, Real Estate Agents are extremely easy to find. They are also naturally born networkers. This is a perfect opportunity to kill 2 birds with one stone, as we can get great recommendations that might have slipped past us, and informing Real Estate Agents of the services provided at Pro.com can be leveraged in a sale of a home that needs assistance. Having them on our side is critical.

Following the same social media focus, consumers that are consistently engaged are likely to provide us candid feedback on their experiences.

Commercial builders can also be leveraged to provide insight into the trends of the territory, and provide references to subcontractors that they utilize.

To be honest, I delete my Amazon Local, Groupon, and LivingSocial deals every morning. I have unsubscribed dozens of times, and still somehow get an email every day. I could be naive, but I think that daily deals have reached their tipping point and are becoming irrelevant.

I think the most important way to build hype about launching in a new city is through building relationships with local news that will validate the legitimacy of Pro.com. Through consistent, powerful messaging launched through press releases, we can have a tremendous effect on the launch.

Upon further research, regarding city demographics, average cost of homes, and tax status, we can leverage public information to find recent home purchases, and other demographic information about a market, often times including contact information for direct mailings.

Lastly, as annoying as they are, facebook ads are affordable, and have a great ROI. Being able to drill down directly to our target audience, and market directly to them, especially since people open up their facebook app incredibly often, we can gain market exposure quickly.

Helping our Pros "build the dream" (no pun intended) as a value add to their business is key.

With my understanding of the cost structure, luckily adoption rates should be high.

With the 11 existing categories of Pros, a minimum of 50 Leads would be needed per category, giving us a total of 550 Leads needed for a market like Detroit.

Of those 550 leads, assuming that roughly 1/3 will be qualified leads interested in learning more, we can expect another 1/3 of those Pros to come on board and start to earn more business.