Following Up Made Easy
It’s easy to let things slide, especially when they feel difficult. Unfortunately, sometimes in business, following up with clients can feel that way.
Why is that? It’s not as if your hands are broken and you can’t type, dial the phone, pick up a cup of coffee, or you don’t know how important following up is.
Come in from the Cold: Warm Up Your Marketing
Do you feel uncomfortable trying to market your business to strangers? Most of us do. Making cold calls, knocking on doors, or attending networking mixers where you don’t know a soul can be challenging or even painful. Happily, cold approaches like these are not all there is to marketing. In fact, you may never need to use them at all.
Perhaps you already know this, and have been marketing your business in other ways. For example, launching a website, exhibiting at trade shows, running pay-per-click ads, distributing flyers, sending emails and letters to people who don’t know you, or posting promos on social media. But all of those approaches are “cold” as well, and many of them can be expensive.
Whenever you are trying to start a marketing conversation with a stranger — with no introduction, referral, or shared connection to help you — it’s a cold approach, whether you make it on the phone, in a room, by mail, or online. And cold approaches, across the board, are less effective than warm ones.
How to Take Your Marketing from “I Can’t” to “I Can”
A large part of the secret sauce for marketing is your mindset.
Not sure if you can be a good networker?
Not sure if you can write a blog?
Not sure if you can represent your company at a trade show?
You can!
When it comes to marketing, the odds of success will be stacked disproportionately in your favor if you have a positive mindset. This means believing in yourself, remembering why you love your business, and taking inspired action.
Asking for Help Is Not Cheating
A desperate self-employed professional contacted me recently. “I need to get clients immediately,” she said. “I’ve been trying for months with no success, and I’m almost out of money.” When I asked her how she had been marketing herself all this time, she gave me the following list of what she had been doing:
- Attending networking events where she met people, introduced herself, and exchanged business cards
- Launched a brochure-style website describing her services
- Started a Facebook page and began posting promos for her business and links to content she found interesting
- Printed some flyers and posted them on bulletin boards around town
Sales for the Asking
“So that’s what I have to offer you, Mr. Prospect. What do you think?”
“Well, Ms. Professional, I’d like to think about it.”
“Okay, may I call you next week?”
Does this dialogue sound at all familiar? Yet another sales conversation is ending with a stall from the prospective client. Is he actually interested in hiring you, or was that just a polite way to say no? What exactly is it that he wants to think about?
You Are the Boss: The Entrepreneurial Mindset
Flashback to 2004: I had my shiny new coaching certificate. I had a grand vision of the future. I had five clients and several years of experience. I had just quit my job. World domination was mine! Except — I had no idea what I had just signed myself up for, and if I had, I’m not sure I would have done it.
The One Thing That Could Transform Your Business
Every self-employed professional has unique circumstances. The solution that will help one person acquire more clients and earn a better living is not the same as the answer that will solve similar issues for another. Finding the best approach to make your business take off is rarely so simple as copying what another person does. It may take a bit of detective work.
Video: Being a Business Owner During Uncertain Times
If you’re a business owner right now, chances are you’re dealing with uncertainty. Whether it’s a lot or a little, uncertainty can be disconcerting!
While doing business during uncertain times is a bit like chasing an ever-changing landscape, there are things you can do to make things easier.
Put More Love in Your Marketing
Do you want your clients and prospects to love you? I think most of us self-employed professionals would. When your prospects love you, closing sales is easy. When your clients love you, they keep doing business with you, and refer others to do the same.
Yet the language often used for marketing and sales reveals perspectives that don’t have much to do with love. The path to closing sales is to “overcome objections” or “don’t take no for an answer.” You’re supposed to write “killer copy” to use for a “marketing blitz” or “promotional blasts” so you can “blow away” your “targets.” You should “hone your weapons” so you can “battle for market share,” “fight for sales,” and “smash the competition.” When you succeed, you are “killing it” or “crushing it.”
Six Steps to Get Your Audience to Read What You Write
If you’re a self-employed professional who wants to get the attention of prospective clients by writing blog posts, magazine and journal articles, case studies, or an ebook, you already know this problem. Writing material like this takes up time and brain capacity. There’s nothing worse than sweating over a piece for hours and then having only a handful of people read it.
With a bit of care and attention, you can turn that situation around, and start attracting the readers you want. Here are six steps to get your desired audience reading what you write.
