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Finding new clients
A to do list for self-promotion
By Thomas Myer
At the top of every business owner's mind should be acquiring new clients. Even if you have a lot of current clients, there's no telling when something might happen to change all of that.
Some business owners think of marketing as something that needs to happen when they're at the end of their rope, so to speak. They finish a project and realize that there are no projects in the pipeline, and so they rush around trying to find new clients. Once they land some work, they ignore marketing until the work finishes.
This sort of cycle is really easy to fall into, but the cure for it is equally simple: stop thinking of marketing as a last minute, just-in-time effort. Instead, you should view marketing as an organic part of your business, something that you do along with other regular tasks, such as bookkeeping, customer care, and even taking out the trash.
Marketing 101
Here are some effective ways to market yourself:
Networking. This is where you attend Chamber of Commerce events, networking parties, and referral swapping lunches like BNI (Business Network International). It also includes having meetings with customers and companies that could use your product or service.
Face-to-face networking is crucial to every business. Think about it. There are plenty of people working in all walks of life. Why should anyone trust you or hire you? What makes you better than all the other copywriters, architects, caterers, realtors, and lawyers?
Meeting someone face-to-face will make you more than just an email, business card, or voice on a phone line. You become a person, with a face, handshake, and attire. It's important, then, that you present yourself professionally and don't forget business cards! Not having business cards makes you look pretty foolish.
Face-to-face meetings are also opportunities for serendipity to bloom. You might bump into someone who was searching for your product or service. Or you might run into someone who can refer you to someone else.
Key to the networking effort is your tagline. You need to have a short, 15 to 30 second speech handy that explains what you do in such a way to make people say, 'tell me more.'
To build an effective tagline, start with your name and what you do for a living. Or you can relate a story about a common pain point and how you address it. For example, here's a tagline for a bookkeeper:
"You know how you hate to keep up with your business books? Well, I take all that stress away by keeping your books for you. I m Wanda Davis and I run Painless Bookkeeping."
Demonstrate your talent. Another very effective way to show your competence is to demonstrate how good you are. If you are a writer or designer, put together a portfolio of your best work. If you offer computer support services for home-based businesses, then
give workshop sand demonstrations on how to fix common problems with printers and computers. Nothing builds your credibility like a demonstration of your work, and credibility is the key to standing out from the rest of the crowd.
Cultivate gatekeepers. A gatekeeper is someone who will talk you up to others, or give you access to a certain part of your target market. Gatekeepers include former bosses and coworkers, relatives, and even casual friends. If you've done some work for someone, they may be a gatekeeper into a lucrative niche market. It will be their name and what they say about you that could land you more work.
The phone and marketing
Calling . this is where most everyone has trouble. Calling, if done improperly, can be a waste of time, and it might even hurt your business.
Unfortunately, you'll spend at least some of your time calling up folks to try to get the word out. So what's the best way to go about doing this?
First, do some categorizing. Take everyone in your target market (don't forget your gatekeepers!) and categorize each person like so:
Hot Prospects: Those who will be most receptive to what you have to say. You've known them for a long time, or you've done fantastic work for them in the past.
Warm Prospects: Those who are your acquaintances or people you know through association with other people.
Cold Prospects: Those who are complete strangers to you. Prepare your message by condensing it to one-two sentences (you're a communicator, so communicate!). This is your "elevator pitch." Then have some other things to say that elaborate on this pitch. Finally, think about answers to questions like "How much do you charge?" and "Tell me more about how this works."
When you feel ready, call all your hot people first. You'll be able to tell your story to a friend or close associate, in a more relaxed setting. If they aren't interested in your services, ask for leads or for feedback. Most people in your hot category will want to see you succeed.
Next, call your warm people. More than likely, talking to your hot people means you've gotten some practice. You should feel relaxed, not only because you understand your own story, but you ve heard objections and gotten feedback. Follow the same procedure, give them your story, see if they're interested, and ask for leads.
Finally, make your cold calls. Now you're warmed up and the exercise shouldn't be as daunting. You should be pretty good at this by now, but always be open to change your spiel or your tack as you sense needs/desires in your market. For example, you may be trying to market yourself as a one type of specialist, but maybe everyone you're calling really wants help with some other kind of specialty ... time to change your tack.
Phone time
How much time should you spend on calls? When you're first starting out, you'll probably have to devote at least two hours a day to the effort. Pick two hours in which you would be otherwise unproductive (for example, when your creative juices ebb) and dial those numbers. After you start getting work, you can reduce the amount of time spent calling, but you need to keep up some level of activity into the local business scene. Follow up any calls you make with a direct mail piece either a letter or email that provides more information or thanks the person for their time.
Advertising
Advertising is important, and it should be part of your marketing mix. Unfortunately, it can be pretty expensive for someone starting out, so you need to be very careful that you are using the right media (radio, newspaper ads, online ads, and cable access TV ads) to reach the right customers.
Just as with calling, you need to have a focused message when you advertise. Usually this comes down to what is known as a "unique selling proposition" or USP. It is the one thing that sets you apart from others who do what you do. A USP can focus on your methods, your speedy service, or some kind of niche (a caterer, for instance, may specialize in Mediterranean foods).
Any number of factors could affect a particular ad's effectiveness the media, the ad copy, the artwork, the ad placement, and the target market. So you'll have to test until you start getting the response you want.
And while advertising may be last on this list, a proper combination of ways to market yourself, your position and your business should be first on everyone's list. It is best to follow the Boy Scout motto and "Be Prepared."
Copyright 2006 Publishers-Edge
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