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Added for You - 3 Simple Things
As a retired entrepreneur I was recently reflecting how I had always felt that our company needed to out innovate our competitors. In fact I spent countless hours considering how to be more efficient and use our machinery to make more money in less time and give us the edge over the competition.You know, I cannot even tell you how many things I have designed in my life. My entire company and all our proprietary equipment was designed by me, no degree, no engineering background, just common sense and trial and error and you know what? We built the best equipment the industry had ever known.The other day I was talki
Networking
While the first 2 strategies are indirectly networking one-to-many, let’s take a look at one-to-one networking. Do your friends and family actually know what you do? When your brother is talking to his friends, does he say “my brother does something with computers,” but doesn’t really know the details? I think all too often we assume that our nearest-and-dearest know what we do, but I am willing to bet that half or more actually don’t know what exactly we do and what an ideal client for us is. Come up with a catchy and easy to understand
As far as small business marketing goes, free publicity is gold. It’s not just that you’re getting your company name to the public without having to pay for it; it’s that the news publicity – whether it’s in a magazine, newspaper, or online, weighs more heavily in your prospective customers minds. Even as skepticism reigns, people see information printed by news-type sources (whether in print or online) as being more truthful, more objective, than information that’s paid for by the company (advertising).But simply sending out a press kit to your local news media won’t guarantee you that free publicity. The cardinal ru
I believe that there are 3 key ingredients to marketing your Consulting or Contracting services:
1. Articles
2. Presentations/Seminars
3. Networking
Articles
Articles, like the one you are reading, are a great way to be viewed as an expert in your field. Since you have a Consulting or a Professional Contracting business, you must be at the point in your career where you have some valuable experience and can charge a primo-rate for it. Hence, you are an expert already! If you are an LAN Consultant, why not write a small article or free downloadable ebook about ‘how to maintain your small office network for free’? Don’t worry, you aren’t really giving away all of your secrets. More often than not, the reader will need help maintaining his or her small office network, and guess who they will get in contact with!
If your target market is small businesses (and you are the LAN Consultant that we are discussing), you could submit your articles to any local small business publication in your area. If you are going to go fishing, you need to go where the fish are!
Presentations/Seminars
Again, this is a great way to be viewed as an expert in your field. There are always organizations looking for people to do presentations and lead educational seminars. Let’s use our LAN Consultant friend; she leads a seminar on ‘Security for Small Business Networks’, for a group of small business owners. My guess is that only a very small percentage of the audience will actually know how to do the suggested strategies once they get back to their office. The majority of the audience is actually pre-qualifying themselves to become a client of hers. After all, a small business owners’ time is MUCH more valuable working on the business (sales, marketing, etc) than trying to figure out if the firewall is secure.
These presentations don’t have to be sales-y at all, rather chalk full of good tips and the mention that you are available on an as-needed basis, and you are done! Be sure to have hand-outs with your contact information and you are set!
Networking
While the first 2 strategies are indirectly networking one-to-many, let’s take a look at one-to-one networking. Do your friends and family actually know what you do? When your brother is talking to his friends, does he say “my brother does something with computers,” but doesn’t really know the details? I think all too often we assume that our nearest-and-dearest know what we do, but I am willing to bet that half or more actually don’t know what exactly we do and what an ideal client for us is. Come up with a catchy and easy to understand
1. I started not to include this one since it’s so obvious, but I remembered that there are many artists that still have not taken this step:Get yourself a web site, online portfolio or SOME type of online presence! The fastest and most cost effective way today to connect with prospective clients is to do it online. Even when connecting with potential clients offline, sending them to your web site is the most efficient way to jumpstart the process of turning a prospect into a paying client.2. Send people to your site. Once you have the web site, you must send people to it! You can
Presentations/Seminars
Again, this is a great way to be viewed as an expert in your field. There are always organizations looking for people to do presentations and lead educational seminars. Let’s use our LAN Consultant friend; she leads a seminar on ‘Security for Small Business Networks’, for a group of small business owners. My guess is that only a very small percentage of the audience will actually know how to do the suggested strategies once they get back to their office. The majority of the audience is actually pre-qualifying themselves to become a client of hers. After all, a small business owners’ time is MUCH more valuable working on the business (sales, marketing, etc) than trying to figure out if the firewall is secure.
These presentations don’t have to be sales-y at all, rather chalk full of good tips and the mention that you are available on an as-needed basis, and you are done! Be sure to have hand-outs with your contact information and you are set!
Networking
While the first 2 strategies are indirectly networking one-to-many, let’s take a look at one-to-one networking. Do your friends and family actually know what you do? When your brother is talking to his friends, does he say “my brother does something with computers,” but doesn’t really know the details? I think all too often we assume that our nearest-and-dearest know what we do, but I am willing to bet that half or more actually don’t know what exactly we do and what an ideal client for us is. Come up with a catchy and easy to understand
As gas prices continue to skyrocket, more and more people are beginning to look at their work at home options. Many people who have never considered the non-traditional workplace are taking it more seriously.Work at home used to be one of those phrases that often met with that look. You know, that disapproving look that your mother gave you when you said you wanted to take a break from school to “find yourself” or that the dent was in the car before you took it. Most people envisioned a career from home to be sitting on your couch stuffing envelopes or being on the phone all day selling magazine subscriptions. People did
Presentations/Seminars
Again, this is a great way to be viewed as an expert in your field. There are always organizations looking for people to do presentations and lead educational seminars. Let’s use our LAN Consultant friend; she leads a seminar on ‘Security for Small Business Networks’, for a group of small business owners. My guess is that only a very small percentage of the audience will actually know how to do the suggested strategies once they get back to their office. The majority of the audience is actually pre-qualifying themselves to become a client of hers. After all, a small business owners’ time is MUCH more valuable working on the business (sales, marketing, etc) than trying to figure out if the firewall is secure.
These presentations don’t have to be sales-y at all, rather chalk full of good tips and the mention that you are available on an as-needed basis, and you are done! Be sure to have hand-outs with your contact information and you are set!
Networking
While the first 2 strategies are indirectly networking one-to-many, let’s take a look at one-to-one networking. Do your friends and family actually know what you do? When your brother is talking to his friends, does he say “my brother does something with computers,” but doesn’t really know the details? I think all too often we assume that our nearest-and-dearest know what we do, but I am willing to bet that half or more actually don’t know what exactly we do and what an ideal client for us is. Come up with a catchy and easy to understand
I’m sure you’ve heard every “rags to riches” story out there and of course some are a little more believable than others. But, the best stories are those that actually show proven results and exactly how to go about obtaining them. Most of the time author’s don’t give this information because the secret to their money making methods lies within the money making package itself. The real mystery behind their millions is having you pay for a web package that teaches you how to promote the “free” website provided in the package. Most of the time the website is just a landing page that leads people directly back to their product.siness owners. My guess is that only a very small percentage of the audience will actually know how to do the suggested strategies once they get back to their office. The majority of the audience is actually pre-qualifying themselves to become a client of hers. After all, a small business owners’ time is MUCH more valuable working on the business (sales, marketing, etc) than trying to figure out if the firewall is secure.
These presentations don’t have to be sales-y at all, rather chalk full of good tips and the mention that you are available on an as-needed basis, and you are done! Be sure to have hand-outs with your contact information and you are set!
Networking
While the first 2 strategies are indirectly networking one-to-many, let’s take a look at one-to-one networking. Do your friends and family actually know what you do? When your brother is talking to his friends, does he say “my brother does something with computers,” but doesn’t really know the details? I think all too often we assume that our nearest-and-dearest know what we do, but I am willing to bet that half or more actually don’t know what exactly we do and what an ideal client for us is. Come up with a catchy and easy to understand
In our continuing and seemingly endless series on medical billing of claims via electronic means using NSF 3.01 specifications, we'll be picking up with our review of the GD0 record, which is a generic CMN, starting with field number 18.GD0 field 18, position 61, is the siderails part of bed indicator. This indicator tells the carrier if the bed that the patient owns has siderails attached to it. The key word to this field is owns. The patient must own and not rent the bed, for this to apply. So even if the patient has siderails, if the bed is rented, this field would not be filled with a Y.GD0 field 19, posit
Networking
While the first 2 strategies are indirectly networking one-to-many, let’s take a look at one-to-one networking. Do your friends and family actually know what you do? When your brother is talking to his friends, does he say “my brother does something with computers,” but doesn’t really know the details? I think all too often we assume that our nearest-and-dearest know what we do, but I am willing to bet that half or more actually don’t know what exactly we do and what an ideal client for us is. Come up with a catchy and easy to understand tag-line that describes you and your services and rehearse it daily. My tag-line for my Consultant Coaching business is simple, “I assist Consultants and Contractors in securing more work in less time.” It’s simple, it’s precise, and it’s not wordy. Sometimes I throw the work ‘Technical’ in after “I help” because that’s where I am the strongest, but I work with all types of Professional Service providers.
We could talk about all the other types of one-to-one networking techniques, but let’s just run with this one for now. There is nothing more frustrating to me than when someone stands up at a networking meeting, talks for 2 minutes, sits down and I still have know idea what they do or what they are looking for!
Extra
Your former clients can be a huge resource for you for 2 different reasons.
1) What do they want from a Consultant or Contractor that you couldn’t deliver, yet? Do they want someone who is able to work remotely part time and on-site part time? Do they want someone with experience working with a certain software program that you don’t have training on (yet)? What do they need? The best way to find out is ASK! Once you find out the answer, look into being able to deliver!
2) Who do they know that could benefit from your services? People who work in certain industries will likely know others in the same industry! But you will never know until you ask for a referral. When you get a referral from someone, be sure to send them a hand written ‘thank you’ note and perhaps a small gift!
These are just a few ways of turning your Consulting or Contracting business into a marketing machine! Don’t fear the ‘M’ word! Marketing can be fun, inexpensive, and rewarding! Implement one of these tips into your daily routine and watch it grow. It really is like watching a garden grow, it takes a couple of months to see the fruits of your labor, but it is worth every last bit of effort you put into it!
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