A couple weeks ago, my precious 3 year old jumped on my laptop and shattered my screen. I have a favorite repair place, so I took it in and of course we had to overnight the screen and pay extra for the rush job so I could have it back the next day. I cannot function without that laptop!
When I was picking it up, the gentleman that owns the store was asking what I do for business. I told him that I am a business coach and a professional speaker. His reply, “Ehh, I’ve done lots of businesses and that just seems like a really hard one to find clients.” My reply, “Oh no, that’s just a matter of marketing. We have great lead flow.” He muttered something about, “Oh ya, marketing, I guess I’ve never been very on top of that.”
I get where he was coming from. Marketing sounds expensive and hard. After all, people get degrees in marketing. There are fancy marketing firms and companies spend millions of dollars on it. It can be intimidating.
Marketing is ESSENTIAL in business. If you are still trying to figure out who to talk to in order to close a sale, you’ve got work to do in your marketing department. You should always have an abundance of people to talk to! That’s where marketing comes in!
Here’s the good news: It doesn’t have to be complicated or expensive. Here are my favorite low cost marketing options.
Partner Marketing
Your target market is purchasing and interacting with other businesses and individuals. Who are they? How can you partner up with each other to create a win-win situation? For example: Real Estate Agents and Loan Officers are GREAT marketing partners. Their clients need both services and you can cross refer clients. Auto Sales Associates and Insurance agents, are great marketing partners. When you sell a car, your clients need car insurance, and they insurance agent can pay a kickback to the Auto Sales Associate. I partner with other trainers who specialize in different areas of business and we do webinars together. That is a lead generating opportunity for both of us.
Referral Program
I’m not just talking about sheepishly asking your clients who they know that would be interested in talking with you. I would love for you to have a solid referral program, where you systematically get referrals from your clients at a STRATEGIC point in the sale process. They may not be ready to give you referrals the first time you sit down with them. But 2 months into working with you and LOVING your products or services they may want to tell the world about how great you are. We also want to make sure we are rewarding our clients who give us referrals so that they will WANT to send people our way. Are you paying your clients for referrals that purchase from you? Are you giving gift cards as bonuses? How are you going to get yourself on the forefront of their mind?
Vendor Booths
I’ve been hearing people dog on vendor booths lately and saying that they don’t work. Vendor booths are awesome! You just need to understand how to work them. Maybe that will be a future post! The key to vendor booths is to choose the right ones and to have a rocking follow up system. Last year my husband was in charge of selling vendor booths for a cub scout leader pow-wow. They were going to have 1500 leaders there and the booth was only $50. So I signed up. It was a great reminder that even a small investment can be a bad one! Cub Scout leaders are not my target market! Make sure you choose the right booths at the right events! And once you have those leads, follow up! Not just by adding them to your email list! Follow up by phone. Get yourself in front of those people!
There are MANY other marketing opportunities! When I am coaching my clients, I give them a list of 30+ things they COULD do to lead generate. They key is doing something… all the time. How are you lead generating right now? What is working well for you? Please share on our FB page.