How to Gain and Retain Clients http://buildingbridgesforbusiness.org
Congratulations! You have completed the first steps to owning your own business. You have the necessary licenses required by your state and local government. You have completed your business plan. You have a company name, bank account, website and business cards. Your product or service is all ready to go. All you need is a client! Some of you are lucky enough to start a business with clients waiting but for the rest of you this is where the real work begins. Where do you actually start? At Building Bridges, we are here to help you with your new business. On the following pages you will find our best suggestions for finding and retaining clients. So let s get started! Table of Contents 2 Start Talking Grand Opening 3 Cold Calling Networking Events 4 Social Media 5 Blogging Newsletter Editorial Calendar Connect Your Sites 6 Follow-Up Be The Best You Can Be About Building Bridges BizOxy, a designated a 501(c)3 organization in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, helps those who are embarking on the entrepreneurial challenges. We would like to thank you for taking the time to read this information. We hope you found it helpful in building your business. We invite you to visit ur website at http://buildingbridgesforbusiness.org to view our other business resources. http://buildingbridgesforbusiness.org 1
Start Talking Imagine you are in an elevator with your dream client and have only the time it takes to get from the top floor to the bottom floor in order to make a sale. What would you say to grab their attention? Start preparing your elevator pitch by writing down what your company does. Add your objectives or goals. Rework it a few different ways to help generate ideas. Use descriptive words to get your point across but don t get too fancy. You want your audience to be able to understand what you are saying. Have your elevator pitch ready. Know it inside and out and practice it. That may sound corny, but it is so important. Stand in front of a mirror and practice so when you speak to that first prospective client you don t stumble over the words. You need to be confident in order to prove that you and your business are the best that the client can find. You want your elevator pitch to be about the benefit to the client, not about you or your business. You want the client to know you understand what they want and need and you are prepared to provide it to them. Talk to anyone who will listen friends, family, neighbors, people you strike up a conversation with in line at the grocery store, at networking events, conferences or seminars. You never know who your next client might be. TIP: You only have 30 seconds to make a good first impression as most people don t have an attention span more than that before their mind starts to wonder. So keep your elevator pitch short and sweet. You can elaborate as people start asking questions. Grand Opening Throw a party and invite the neighborhood! You want as many people as possible to know that you are open for business so host a grand opening celebration. Hold it at your office or store, if you have one. If not, ask a local restaurant if you can use one of their conference rooms in exchange for advertising. Invite other business owners, your local government officials, members of your Chamber of Commerce, your family, friends, and anyone else you can think of. Send a special invitation to the press. You want to make sure they help you get the word out. Most radio stations or newspapers are always happy to do a story on a new business, so take advantage of this opportunity. Make sure you are well versed in your elevator speech and have brochures and business cards ready to hand out. Be the host and make it a point to welcome everyone personally. Most importantly, make sure the press gets a picture of you cutting the ribbon on your new business. http://buildingbridgesforbusiness.org 2
Cold Calling Most businesses do not start up with a list of clients. At some point, you are going to have to do some selling. Cold calling is one way to get that done. It doesn t have to be as bad as it sounds. If you are starting a business-to-business model, cold calling can be as easy as walking into your ideal clients office or store and introducing yourself. Just tell them you were in the area and wanted to introduce yourself. You don t really want to sell too much at this point. Cold calling works best in the follow-up. Make sure you send a note thanking them for taking the time to speak to you. If you don t hear back from them, send them another note asking for a meeting to go over your products or services. It usually takes five or six times before your name will sink in, so don t get frustrated. TIP: When you send a note asking for a meeting to talk about your services, the wording is key. Instead of asking when they can meet with you, try asking if Wednesday (or Thursday, or whatever) is a good day for them. They will be more inclined to agree to a date if you ask them for specifics. Networking Events There are a myriad of networking opportunities out there. Some networking groups hold breakfast or lunch meetings. Some hold happy hours at a local bar. Whether you are interested in a formal or a social event, search on-line for your area and find an event that interests you. Look into your local Chamber of Commerce for events. Check out Rotary or Women in Business or your community s SBA office. Whatever your needs are, there is a group that you will fit into. TIP: The object is to have a list of people that you have a sincere business relationship with, not a list of people who you don t know and who don t really care about you or your business. Pick one or two people at your first networking event to connect with. Make it a point to ask them about their business. Remember, it is about them, not you. Follow up after the event and let them know you enjoyed speaking with them. The next time you go to that event, make sure you speak to the original one or two people before you move on to one or two more. Keep adding to your list of people to talk to and build relationships with them. http://buildingbridgesforbusiness.org 3
Social Media Social media is a great way to get your message to your prospective client. In most cases there is no charge for the services. LinkedIn is mainly used for professional networking. Facebook is a membership site where you and your friends exchange messages. Twitter is a micro-blogging service that enables its users to send and read messages of up to 140 characters. Pinterest is a bulletin board style service where users create and manage special interest boards that can be shared with other users. The four social media outlets listed above are just a few of the many that are available. You need to do some research and find a platform that works for your type of business. Keep in mind that these sites are constantly being updated so you need to stay on top of them. TIP: Social media is just that social. The object is to form relationships with the people you are trying to connect with. If you aren t interested in being social, don t even bother. It won t be worth your time and you will get frustrated due to the lack of results. Here are a few simple ways to get the most out of your social media experience: Start with a stellar profile. Let the readers know who you are, what you do, and how you can help them. Your profile should contain a relevant picture or company logo. If you are a sole proprietor, use a professional head shot so people can get to know you and connect a face to the name. Start a conversation. Post information about your products or your community. Show interest in others offerings. Keep track of who is following you and thank them for their participation. Join groups that you and your clients have an interest in and post relevant blog posts or articles to show your knowledge of the service you are providing. Clients like to work with people that they know are knowledgeable in their field. If someone reposts, repins or retweets your posts, write back in order to keep the conversation going. Be social. Talk to other people. Build a relationship with the people you are trying to connect with. http://buildingbridgesforbusiness.org 4
Blogging In addition to your participation in the social media tools listed above, blogging should be a major part of your marketing plan. Blogging shows your clients that you know your products or services and that you are an expert in your field. When you write a blog post, keep it to about 300 to 400 words. Anything longer will just bore your audience. Anything shorter might not give enough information. Make sure your blog articles are written with fresh, compelling content, rich in keywords. Update your blog on a regular basis, encouraging the search engines to crawl your site regularly. Connect Your Sites Newsletters Sending out a monthly newsletter is also a good way to show your ideal client your knowledge base, to highlight new products or to announce events or seminars you may be hosting. Choose a service that fits your needs. There are a number to research Constant Contact and MailChimp come to mind. Some services are free up to a specified number of contacts or emails sent. Some services have templates ready to fill in. Others are fully customizable. You must be aware of anti-spam laws before you send out newsletters. Make sure you are sending to people who have asked you to send to them and make sure you have an opt-out button on your email so they have the ability to stop getting your newsletters if they so desire. Editorial Calendar It is a good practice to have an editorial calendar to log when you will be posting to your blog or sending out a newsletter. Organize your calendar by the dates you want your posts to be published. As you get ideas of what you want to write about, put it on the calendar next to the appropriate date. Writing it down will hold you accountable for your posts and they will be more likely to actually be published. Now that you have a website, a blog, a newsletter, a Facebook page, and a number of other possible outlets for your prospective clients to find out about you, it is in your best interest to connect them all. Let s say someone visited your website. Don t you want him to also visit your Facebook page? Don t you want him to be on your email list? Think of all the information he can get through your blog. Contact buttons on all your sites make it easy for your prospective clients to find your other resources. Put a link to your blog on your website. Put your website address on your business card. Put a friend link to your Facebook page on your newsletter. Make it easy for your prospective client to find you. http://buildingbridgesforbusiness.org 5
Follow-Up Follow-up is the crucial step you don t want to forget. It is key to retaining clients. Let s say you send 20 letters with brochures to prospective clients in your neighborhood. You mail them on Monday and assume they have been delivered by Tuesday or Wednesday. You don t hear from anyone about them and you have no way of knowing if they even received the letter. The mail could have gotten lost or delivered to another office building. The receptionist might have assumed it was junk mail and threw it away before anyone could see it. You spent a lot of time and money on your brochures and you need to know that they got to their intended recipient. What should you do? Follow-up to see if they have any questions. Now let s say you went to a networking event. You met five new people business owners in your area that you would like to see as your new client. You traded business cards with them and had a nice conversation about your products. What kind of follow-up should you do? The next day you should send an email or note saying how nice it was talking to them. Don t sell at this point. It is all about starting a business relationship. You could send another email a few days before the next networking event and ask them if they will be attending. Then make it a point to talk to them at the event. Eventually you will get to the selling point. TIP: If you feel comfortable doing so, send your clients a card on their birthday, a congratulatory note on their business anniversary, or a clipping from the newspaper about their business. They will appreciate your sincere thoughts. Let s say you make a sale and deliver a product. Is there any follow-up here? Definitely! You want to make sure this customer comes back for more. Make sure you stay in touch with your clients so they know you stand behind your product and are there for them if they need anything. Do you have a client you haven t heard from in a while? Give them a call. Ask them how they are doing. Again, you don t need to sell. Just keep your name front and center with them so that when they do need more of your product, they come to you and not your competitor. Be The Best You Can Gaining and retaining clients isn t rocket science but it does take time and persistence to stay in front of those you want to be your client. The information on these pages is just the basics. Here is a brief summary of what we have been talking about: Make sure your product or service is the best quality it can be and stand behind it. Make sure you know your elevator speech perfectly and tell it to anyone who will listen. Get social and build those relationships. Be the expert in your field and write blogs, articles and newsletters and distribute to the media and social networks. Follow up with new contacts and old clients, just to name a few. Don t forget anyone. Be the best you can, forge those relationships, build your business, and enjoy the benefits http://buildingbridgesforbusiness.org 6