20 Jul 5 Secrets to Getting and Keeping All the Clients You Need

Getting and keeping all the clients you need. Does this sound impossible, unattainable, or like some secret code you can’t crack? If it does, you’re not alone. The majority of small business owners list getting enough clients as their #1 challenge.

The reason is simple. When you start a business you know you’re skilled and passionate about what you do. You know you can help people in a big way and you have an exciting dream to do just that. So you decide what you’ll offer and maybe you put up a few web pages, or you print a flyer or brochure or you network and you start trying to figure out how to get clients to experience the wonderful results you know you can help them achieve.

Fast forward a few months or even a few  years later and you’ve discovered that it’s just not that easy. So you start following some “marketing gurus”, people who are really visible online and who you know are successful. Maybe you’ve read their emails or their blog posts and you’ve started to suspect there’s a lot you don’t know about marketing. But for some reason you keep doing what you’ve been doing and hoping you’ll uncover the “secret” that will turn things around and get better results. You invest in what I call “random acts of marketing and hope something works.

How do I know this? Not only was I there years ago, but I’ve seen the same problem with hundreds of people during my many years as a  business and marketing coach and mentor. The people who get out of this struggle are the ones who take action and are determined to find marketing solutions that get measurable results, and who accept nothing less. That’s the biggest secret!
Taking action takes many forms. What money and client generating activities do you do each and every day?

1) Active offline promotion

It’s easy to hide behind your computer or in your office, but your business will ultimately suffer. E-mail, social media messaging, blog posting are all effective but passive.  Active promotion is much more powerful. Active promotion means using your voice to connect with people LIVE. That can take the form of

• Strategic Networking
• Meet and greet phone chats with potential referral partners
• Phone or in person consultations with prospective clients
• Speaking engagements where you are positioned as the expert
• Live meetings with influential people in your industry—lunch, dinner
• Small group informational workshops or retreats

2) Partnering

One of the fastest way to attract new subscribers and clients is by collaborating and partnering with other successful business owners who have followers and clients in your target market, but who don’t directly compete with you. On the other hand, when you need to provide something to your followers that you don’t currently offer, why not partner with someone who already does. They will do most of the work and you’ll receive affiliate commissions. This is powerful and lucrative

3) Education based online marketing automation funnels

Don’t like the idea of cold calling? Then pre-sell your prospects by building a trusting relationship by providing high value free educational marketing content, like a great follow up sequence for those who optin to your mailing list from your website. Include a call to action in each communication. Send people to an informative article, a video, a webinar. Include testimonials and case studied.They will see you as a trustworthy expert and will be pre-sold you hiring you before you even speak to them. I’m not saying you don’t need to ask people to say “yes”. You do. But it will seem natural and easy.

When creating education based marketing make sure to consider the big question your prospects are asking. What’s in it for me? That’s what they’re thinking each time you send them an email, ask for a phone call or invite them to contact you. It’s also what they ask when they visit your website. If you always answer that question for them you’ll be amazed at the results. Too often I see business owners who talk about what they do and how good they are rather than the results they can get their clients. Talk about the biggest solution you can provide.

Creating automated content rich marketing funnels is without doubt the one strategy that can dramatically increase your conversion rate.

4) Paid social media advertising and SEO

Facebook ads are the fastest, most effective method I’ve seen for reaching hot leads and getting them to your website. And it’s measurable and affordable. If you sell services to consumers or other small businesses, you should consider this.

If you’re a local business, you can bet you’re missing out on lots of leads if you’re not front and center in the search engines, especially on Google Maps. Building visibility with Video SEO is also a way to double or triple your website traffic.

5) Marketing Strategy 

Next to not enough promotion, the biggest marketing mistake I see people make is to not have a multiple step strategy for every marketing activity they do. Each strategy needs to lead people to a paid product. In every program I offer we map out a “Strategy String™” so that we end “random acts of marketing” which are always ineffective no matter how hard you work.  The idea is that all of your articles, blog posts, webinars, social media posts gently lead people to a specific outcome. This is crucial and is the secret to major income.

Take a few minutes to look at your current “client getting” activities. Add these 5 secrets and you’ll see amazing results.

Get access to a few short training videos that will show you why you’re not getting all the laser targeted traffic, leads and clients you want and the exact system that will turn it around.