23 Strategies to attract new
clients
1) Be able to talk about what you
do. If you cannot explain it clearly, nobody else will be
able to understand you.
2) Learn to write a great press
release. Not a sleeper press release, but something that
attracts attention and has interest to someone besides you.
3) Create a top quality
website. Forget about the ones that cousin Freddie's high
school sophomore does. The kid may be a great digital
artist, but he's clueless in who he's designing the site
for. You need someone who truly understands marketing.
4) Prepare a 30-second
"elevator-speech". You need to be able to
succinctly define what you do in 30 seconds because that might be
all the time you have.
5) Carry business cards wherever
you go and give some to your spouse and your employees. When
you leave a tip, leave a business card (assuming you tip
well). When someone asks what you do, give them a
card. You want them to be able to hear and see the name of
the company. You'd be surprised how often business cards
will be passed around and/or turn up months later.
6) Obtain certifications in your
field, even if they aren't necessary. It may sound simple,
but people pay more attention to professionals who have initials
behind their name.
7) Know what your competitors do
and how you stack up in comparison. Don't panic over your
competitors, but visit their website often to see if they are
doing something different.
8) Do the right thing, even
if it costs you money. If your employee messed up, back it
up financially and make it right. You still might not keep
the customer, but they will be far less likely to bad-mouth you to
everyone they know.
9) Are you serving too
broad a target market? The temptation is to take any and all
business that you could possibly get. In order for you to
target everyone, you end up targeting nobody. If you aren't
targeting anyone, your message sounds like everyone else's
message.
10) Sell the benefits, not the
features. Nobody buys features, they buy what those features
will do for them. People hate to buy insurance, so why is so
much sold? Simply because of what insurance will do for
family members.
11) Know who your target really
is. In many cases, it's not even the person who would be
receiving services. It can be someone who is looking out for
the client like a family member. You can determine this in
your interview.
12) Never make assumptions about
your client. Most of the time, they will be wrong. A
man living in a $150,000 house could have it all paid off and with
money in the bank, whereas a man living in a $500,000 might be
barely making ends meet and have zero equity.
13) Write a feature or editorial
for your local newspaper. People do read these and they
often investigate the author.
14) Write testimonials for other
websites. Other site owners love to see this, they will
often display your comments for the public, and they will often
give you a reciprocal link to your site.
15) Network with people in
complementary fields. For home healthcare services, this
could be Geriatric Care Managers, home care companies that don't
do home healthcare, and hospital social workers.
16) Provide a variety of payment
options including credit cards, but don't get caught in financing
your services yourself.
17) Speak at civic functions
about your area of expertise and offer to give special training
classes at local churches.
18) Keep a very neat appearance
at all times, even when running to the grocery store. You
never know who you will meet and who they might have with them.
19) If you can afford to do so,
have professional quality brochures made available for you.
Be sure to put these out in PDF format too so that you can email
them to your client.
20) Focus your energies on being
the first one to return a prospect's phone call.
People will often make several calls and the first one there gets
first opportunity.
21) Do something nice for
somebody without expectation of thanks or a return favor.
When it's real, it feels good to you and people remember it.
22) Volunteer your time to a
worth effort. You network more, but the real benefit is that
you become a better person. People prefer to business with
the better person.
23) Be ever thankful for the
small favors that come your way. If you get a referral, be
sure to say thanks, drop a note, or better yet, a discount or some
of your time.
