3 Steps To Landing Your First Client

3 Steps To Landing Your First Client

Do you know that feeling of getting your first client?  It’s one of the best feelings there is. Getting your first client not only validates your business idea, it also validates you as a professional.

Getting your first client also means that you are on your way to getting your second client.  And that means you can get hundreds of clients.  For most of us, getting that first client is really, really challenging.  And the harder we try, the more frustrated we become.  

Don’t worry if you don’t even have a website yet. I landed my first few clients before my website was even finished. There is a great benefit to landing clients first as this will help you to outsource pieces of your website creation.

If you’d like some help in getting your first client, take a look at the three tips below:

Fall backwards into your first client

Many people get their first paying client by falling backwards into a situation. For example, perhaps you love to create videos. As you create more and more videos, your friends come to you with questions on how to produce and edit them. Then a local business owner asks you to help him create videos. Boom! Now you have your first paying customer!

So the formula can be applied to you, right now, at this very moment. Look at your interests, begin helping others, and then find the intersection of where those two meet.  That’s where you can begin to advertise your services as a professional.

Be helpful

Always look for areas where you can be helpful and provide value. People will smell the desperation from a mile away if you first approach them with an offer to purchase from you. Build up your credibility in Facebook Groups by answering questions and when it’s needed, by providing good feedback. Once others see your skills and your willingness to help, you can make the natural transition of turning them into your paid customers.

Call friends and prospects, BUT…

Instead of asking for work, make them a partner in your first client search. An example would be to send an email that says, “Hey Valerie, I have something really neat going on and would like your assistance. Who do you know that may benefit from (insert service) that would really enjoy working with someone would could really wow them?” When you use this technique, you’re being positive, providing value, and including them as a helpful partner in your search.

By using these three techniques, you can eliminate frustration.  You’ll get your first paid client quickly and before you realize it, you’ll be rolling ahead with your business.

Please contact me for more business strategies that you can implement to get your business going in the right direction.

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Bring Em’ Back! Tips For Implementing An Effective Lead Nurturing Strategy.

Bring Em’ Back! Tips For Implementing An Effective Lead Nurturing Strategy.

Even the most leak-proof sales funnel will have some leads will drop out for one reason or another. It’s inevitable that not all of your prospects will pan out, and that’s okay.

But wait,” you say, “I lost out on a potential sale. How am I supposed to be okay with that?” 

It’s simple: not all is lost. Just because someone wasn’t ready to buy in the past doesn’t disqualify them as a future customer. Perhaps they weren’t ready to commit, or it just wasn’t the right time.

If you stay in touch with them via a lead nurturing campaign, you can make sure that they remember you when they finally are ready. And as a bonus, implementing a lead nurturing strategy ensures that they won’t come back as a cold lead. The point of lead nurturing is to keep them warm and toasty so that your company remains at the top of their mind, and to continue to persuade them that your business is the best choice.

Let’s take a look at some tips for implementing a successful lead nurturing strategy:

  1. Target and segment your strategy

The more targeted your marketing efforts are, the more effective they will be. And you have an advantage in lead nurturing because you already know your audience. You segment your strategy by building out lead nurturing campaigns that are personalized to different segments of your list.  These folks will feel as if you  really understand their needs and can offer the most relevant, helpful product. That way, when they’re ready to buy, they perceive you as the right fit for them — not your competitor.

If you have a resource or content library, make sure to include relevant content in your lead nurturing campaign to position yourself as a thought leader in the industry. There’s a reason why content marketing is all the rage: it works!

  1. Schedule each touch

The entire point of lead nurturing is to stay in touch so make sure that you’re not letting too much time go between each message. Be consistent and try to make sure that every piece of your campaign is planned, completed, and scheduled in advance. That way you’ll be sure that no one will fall through the cracks. Automated email marketing software is particularly useful here, and it can save you a lot of time and energy.

  1. Consider Multi-channel marketing

The focus in lead nurturing often falls on email marketing but there’s a whole world out there! Think of how effective it would be if someone received a well-crafted marketing email and advertisements on social media that followed up on that email’s messaging by providing more information or a different perspective on the same offer.

Your leads are all over the place so you should be, too. Ensure that your lead nurturing strategy is as successful as possible by creating it as a targeted, holistic marketing experience for every prospect on your list.

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Ready to Blog? Here are 12 great tips!

Ready to Blog? Here are 12 great tips!

If your company has an online presence, you should be blogging! Even if it doesn’t, you should still blog. Why? Because a good blog will draw potential customers to your site, help spread the word about your business, and improve your conversion rate. It can also help build your reputation as a trusted, reliable expert in your field. 

To help you get started, we’ve rounded up the top dozen blogging tips from around the web.

Post new content frequently

According to this article on HubSpot, “Over a two-month span, businesses that published blog entries on a regular basis (more than once a week) added subscribers over twice as fast as those companies that added content once a month.  Consistency is key, so create a content calendar to help you stay on track with your posts.  

Keep a spare blog post handy

We all have busy lives and sometimes things happen. Keep a spare blog ready for publication when life, or the flu, interferes with your content calendar.

Use a catchy title

People will decide whether or not to read your blog after reading just the title. So make it a good one! CoSchedule’s free headline analyzer tool can help you create a great title. A catchy title might even translate into more shares on social media. Just make sure the content is as interesting as the title. No bait and switch allowed! 

Speaking of content…

There’s a lot of competition out there. In order to stand out from the crowd, you need to write content that’s interesting or unique. Reading takes effort, so make sure that what you’re posting is worth that effort. If you’re having trouble coming up with ideas, this article should help.

Structure matters!

Most blog visitors are actually skimmers rather than readers. Structure your blog so that it’s easy to skim– otherwise you may lose your visitors!

Subheadings break up blocks of text, making it easier to read. They also give your viewers a taste of what’s coming up next.

Use images

Photos, drawings and other graphics add interest and actually increase your blog’s believability. Great images are more likely to get your blog shared, too.

Socialize 

Know the most popular social networking sites and make sure you’re a part of them. Keep track of interesting questions, quotes, or other tidbits that you hear from your contacts on social media. These are often great for generating blog posts that will spread through that same media.

Also make sure you provide share buttons – and make them easy to find!

Build trust

If you offer your blog viewers the opportunity of asking questions or leaving comments, you’ll build trust, and increased trust often leads to improved sales.  

Get to know your target audience

You need to know for whom you’re writing for and what their interests are. That way you can write posts that resonate with them. Hint:  your target audience is usually your target customer!

Stay true to yourself and your brand 

Best-selling author and expert blogger Jeff Goins says: “Writing isn’t about picking the right topic; it’s about finding the right voice.” Make sure your voice accurately reflects you and your brand.

Get help when you need it 

There are a lot of aspects to a successful blog: analytics, SEO rankings, keyword choices, social media shares. It’s perfectly okay to ask for help when you need it. Just make sure that you’re choosing experts who have the expertise you need.   

Realize that you’re in it for the long haul

The web is a very big, very busy place. It might take a long time before you start seeing results. Be prepared to stick it out, learn, grow, and improve. Eventually, your patience and your efforts will pay off! 

 

The Key Steps To Slay Your 4th Quarter And Finish The Year Strong

The Key Steps To Slay Your 4th Quarter And Finish The Year Strong

 

The end of summer is approaching. The kids are back to school, and it will be the official start of your business’s 4th quarter. As you sip on your pumpkin spice latte, ask yourself this question:

 

What’s your plan to finish the year strong?

 

If you don’t have an immediate answer, then use the four tactics below to get organized, focused and committed to having your best end of year that you’ve ever had!

 

1) Be crystal clear on your financial goals.

What is your revenue goal for October? November? Exactly how much money are you going to earn by December 31st of this year?  If you can’t answer that with absolute clarity, then this is your No. 1 priority.

 

Knowing exactly how much you’re going to earn acts like a magnet that attracts clients, opportunities and business your way.  Having this exact number also motivates you to take action and continue taking action throughout the quarter.

 

Take some time today to identify these numbers and then write them down on a card and keep it with you at all times.  Post it at your desk, on your bathroom mirror, in your car, anywhere that you will be sure to see in several times a day.  Remember that you will create more of whatever you focus on.

 

2) Call your best clients first.

Your greatest lead generator is your current list of clients. I’m not just talking about selling them new offers, but tapping into them for new client referrals. They will be your best referral source by far.

Make a target list of these clients and begin calling them this week.  Once again, identify a number you expect to generate from these clients. Maybe the goal is to sign 5 new clients or sell 20 new seats to your e-course. What’s the goal? Do you have it? Okay, now, I want you to add 10% to it. The idea is to REACH for it.

 

3) Call the low hanging fruit next

Identify your most valuable leads next and make attempts to reach them by mid-month.  These leads should include people that have shown interest in working with you in the past.  They are your “warm” leads.

 

Maybe you had a discovery call and the timing just wasn’t right for them. Or they could be someone that has downloaded an eBook or other lead magnet. I recently contacted someone that I had conversed with in the past. The timing wasn’t right for when last spoke. It had been a few months so I decided to check in. Her first response was, “I was just thinking about you!”. Turns out she was ready to take the next step and my timing was perfect.

 

If you are a health coach that works with busy moms, now is the PERFECT time to reach out. The kids are back in school and moms are ready to focus on themselves again. If you are a social media strategist, focus on how busy the holiday season can get and how hiring someone to manage social media will reduce stress for them and allow them to keep focus on their business while enjoying their personal life.

 

Prioritizing your leads in this way will make sure that you spend your time wisely early in the season, focusing on those leads that will give you the best return for your effort.   

 

The bottom line is to increase your visibility and engage!

 

4) Start visualizing how it feels now that you’ve accomplished your revenue goal.

A great motivator and mindset exercise is to visualize and start acting like you have already achieved your goal. Pretend “as if.” It’s like the exercise of feeling happy–you smile for a minute in the mirror and you just naturally start feeling happy. So, act “as if” you have surpassed your revenue projections.

Visualize that it’s the holiday season. Ask yourself:

  • What does it feel like to have accomplished your goals?
  • What are things are you now enjoying as a result of your efforts?
  • How is your family feeling now that you’ve made your goal? 
  • How confident, positive and happy are you?

 

These are the feelings you should identify now and begin affirming every night before you go to sleep and every morning immediately after you wake up.   Again, you will become what you think about all day long.

 

These are the four keys to having a great 4th quarter.  I’ve organized my business to be in alignment with them, and I can already feel how good it is to have accomplished them.  It’s a great state to be in and I encourage you to get in alignment with these keys, too.

 

If you need some help in crushing your 4th quarter goals and starting your 2017 strong, sign up for the FREE Business Breakthrough Mini-Course. The course starts September 12th. You will receive daily emails and videos guiding you through creating your own 4th quarter growth strategy.

 

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