Think back to the last networking event you attended. Did you walk away with a fistful of business cards? Did you hand out business cards to those you met? Even in today’s electronic age, there are many venues in which your good, tried and true business card will be your best “giveaway” when you meet someone.
How can you make your business card memorable and keep it out of the trash can or shoved, forgotten, in the back of a drawer? Here are three items I believe are crucial to have on your card:
Your company logo and/or a photo of yourself (if you have a good one). You don’t want to clutter the card with a lot of wording but if you have a memorable logo, it should be part of the card. Putting your photo on the card helps make you more memorable as well, especially when you consider that if an individual receives a dozen or more cards having a “face with the name” may make it easier to make a connection following the event.
Don’t forget to have your contact information on the card. Don’t force an acquaintance to go to your website then search for a Contact Us section. Make it easy to be contacted by having your name, phone number and email on the card.
Make use of the base of the card. If you are a service provider, list your services on the back of the card. Add your social media handles there. If you’re an author put a thumbnail of your book cover there. It is valuable real estate if you use it wisely.
Do you still use business cards? If you don’t, how do you gather contact information at networking events?
Do you simply love the font on a brochure? Do you find yourself gazing at a flaw in the carpet that surrounds your office? Do you bemoan the fact that the wallpaper is downright ugly in your rented business space? If you find yourself focusing on these items, you are not focusing on the important items in your business.
You need to focus on the important, not the “ugly wallpaper.” Why? Because your clients are focusing on the goods and services you provide them, not the ugly wallpaper. When a client makes a decision to work with you he or she is making that decision based on your reputation, your mission or vision statement, your ethical standing and the costs of the goods and services you provide. Those are the items you, as the business owner, need to focus on as well.
What are the important items in your business? They include:
The staff you hire
Your business budget
The way you market yourself and your business
The benefits your products and services provide
Forward-thinking growth aspects
As was famously penned, “don’t sweat the small stuff” ie your surroundings, instead look at the big picture and focus on the business goals you’d set for yourself and not the ugly wallpaper.
Without customers, you wouldn’t have a business. That’s the bottom line. What can you to do always make certain your customers are treated like royalty? What can you and your staff do to enhance the customer experience? Here are a few items to consider:
Make sure your employees are engaged. A bored or unhappy employee will radiate that negative energy to your customers and that won’t do anything to enhance the customer experience and may even drive your customers to find a provider whose employees are happier to help.
Ask for feedback. If you don’t ask your customers how their experience was, how will you know if they enjoyed it? You may believe things are moving along swimmingly, but in reality your customers are under-whelmed but you’re a habit and that’s why they stay. This is a recipe for disaster and for your customers leaving you for greener pastures.
Are your marketing and sales strategies staying current with today’s trends? What happened in the past, may not always be what will happen or be effective in the future. Take time to annually review your strategies and brainstorm with your sales staff to see if there are better ways to reach out to potential clients — you may be surprised at what you learn!
In an ideal world your clients would provide word of mouth referrals to their friends or business associates and your phone would ring non-stop and you’d be set for all of the business you can handle. In the real world though there are times when your phone just doesn’t ring and clients aren’t calling you back. Why is that? There are many reasons but it could be that you need to put in place a better system of following up and continually marketing your business.
Here are my steps to connecting with prospective clients and to having my phone ring:
Schedule time for follow ups. If you meet someone at a networking event, set a time right then and there to follow up with him. Make sure you keep that appointment. Also, make time in your weekly calendar for your follow up calls and contacts. If you don’t schedule it, it won’t happen.
Send a thank you note. I realize that “everything is on the internet” and that is part of the reason a follow up thank you note is powerful. When is the last time you received a piece of physical mail that thanked you for something? Probably not very recently. Send a post card with your business name or logo on it and viola you’ve not only thanked the customer, you’ve had your name “out there” with the delivery people.
Make sure your follow up goals are realistic. Can you honestly follow up with two dozen people in a day? Not likely unless you’re willing to sacrifice an entire day of running your business to do it. Aim for a half a dozen or set aside two hours a day to make follow up calls and do as many in that time as you can. Don’t make the task insurmountable.
What are your follow up methods? Do they get your phone ringing?
You went into, or are going into, business to make money, right? To do that you need to understand who your ideal client is. Who is that person, or company or group that will benefit from the goods or services you have to offer? Remember, not everyone will want what you’re selling and that only stands to reason, because no one business entity can be all things to all people.
To be successful in business you need to have a niche and to do that you need to understand who your ideal client is. How can you do that? Here are some steps:
Take time to draw a mental picture of who would best benefit from your goods or services
Determine where you will find this ideal client
Is there a particular industry to which the products or services you sell is better suited to?
When you meet individuals at networking events do you have people come up to you afterwards and ask for more information? Chances are, they are your ideal client but you will still need to do homework to determine if they are a good fit.
You can help narrow down your ideal client by understanding with whom you want to work: Corporations that employ more than 100 people or a solopreneur; a locally owned manufacturer or a global virtual business service provider. Do you have an ideal number in your mind of how much you want to earn? You need to find an ideal client that can afford what you want to charge. You may need to determine your ideal client is one whose business grosses $5,000,000 per year… or whatever number you determine. Understanding that not every person you meet is, or will be, or should be your client will help you hone your focus on bringing in those clients that are an ideal match. Here’s to your prosperity!
If you’re stuck in a rut from dealing with the same types of clients, offering the same types of services and working the same types of hours, you might be in a rut. How can you recapture the excitement you once felt for your business? There are ways to get yourself out of your business rut and prior to the new year moving in is the best time to do just that.
What can you do to energize yourself and breathe new life into the work you do? Here are my suggestions:
Sow new seeds. If you know what it is you do better than anyone else, then you need to sow those seeds and nurture that. Focus on your expertise and watch your enthusiasm grow.
Get rid of the weeds. All business owners can point to a client or two who truly drains them of their energy and makes them dread picking up the phone when that client’s number scrolls across. It may be difficult to imagine a time when it’s good to jettison a client, but one that saps your strength is truly not worth the money he or she brings in.
Cultivate and nurture your winning clients. You know you have clients in your garden that are a joy to work with, offer you referral business and who truly value what you do for them. Nurture them and never forget to reward their loyalty to you.
What can you do in 2014 to grow your garden and start off the new year refreshed?
