It’s easy enough for most women to be friendly and helpful with people we meet for the first time in a social setting … but when we are confronted with doing the same in a business-like setting, it’s unnerving and it makes us feel uncomfortable.
So, let’s be honest for a moment. In the beginning, face-to-face networking and deliberately going out to meet new people (peers, clients, colleagues etc. ) is tough…. perhaps because we associate it with “hard labor”… (You know…net-“working”) …..and because it sounds like a “business activity” it’s easy to think that we need to act in a different way than when we meet people socially.
But, what if you can change your mindset about networking?
What if networking is not about what you can get out of it (new clients, more sales, higher income etc.) but about what you can offer to others (help, assistance, information, friendship etc.).
This is a Tweetable
Networking is not about what you can get out of it but, about what you can offer to others.
This might seem strange at first, but there’s a very powerful saying telling us “What you sow, you will reap”.
So, when you do networking with the mindset of helping someone by simply sharing your knowledge, listening to others, connecting people, giving referrals etc. etc. you will become a powerful resource for other people. You will not only gain business trust and credibility – which by the way is the basis of any long-lasting and profitable networking relationship – but also reap the benefits from forming powerful business relationships that in the end will benefit your business.
In this new way of networking, set the intention to…
Just be you
Meet interesting people and helping others. Thistotally changes the dynamic and makes is so much easier. It will also boost your sense of purpose and self-worth and lift that overwhelming pressure of getting a new client.
Create value for others. You do that by being genuinely interested in what people are doing. Listen to what they say and then offer friendly and helpful suggestions when you can. The more value you create, the more it will come back to you many times over.
Understand their needs and what’s important to them first, before you tell them about yours.
Build mutually beneficial relationships. Even when you may not directly be able to help the person you meet, you may know someone else within your current network who might. And vice versa, they might not be able to help you directly, but they may introduce or recommend you to people who might be able to help or become a client.
Be a connector. Network with people on different levels and in different industries. Growing your network outside of your industry will make you more valuable to people in your immediate industry. With a broad network you can be the person that connects people across industries.
Before you know it, you’ll find yourself having a good time, developing strong relationships and attracting loads of referrals and new clients.
Some Practical Tips
When you meet someone, repeat her name, e.g. “Pleased to meet you, Jane”. This will reinforce her name into your subconscious and help you remember it better.
Appear Confident- even if it feels you are falling to pieces.Don’t stand around the edges of the room, waiting for someone to approach you. Purposely walk towards a person or a group that has already formed and ask: “May I join you?” The answer will always be yes.
Smile. By smiling you become more approachable, warm and inviting to others. A genuine smile will also put your nerves at ease.
Wear an outfit that is comfortable and makes you feel confident.
Prepare and practice a 30s introduction for when people ask you what you do. Your 30s intro is just a short snapshot about you and what you do. Try to include a major benefit of how you help your clients (e.g. I’m Francis van Wyk. I’m a marketing mentor and I help women entrepreneurs to get more clients). Keep your 30s intro simple, natural and in plain English. Your goal is for anyone to understand and connect with what you’re saying…. and when your 30s intro hits home, they’ll immediately respond with something like “Wow, I need to speak to you…” 🙂
Prepare a couple open ended questions that gets people to talk about their business. The truth is, people love to talk about themselves and what they do. When you ask the questions and then listen carefully, you can learn a lot from the answers and also identify more opportunities to be of help.
Never, ever scan the room while talking to someone. It is just plain rude.
Rather make good eye contact and have sincere conversations.
Never fill both hands with a snack plate AND a drink. Have at least one hand free for greeting people and/or accepting a business card.
Mingle and move around. It doesn’t help to chat only with people you know or with only one person for the entire event. Approach people who you don’t know and start a conversation. (Trust me, it gets easier.)
Have your business cards within easy reach when someone asks you for one.
Use the cards of the people you meet to write down something interesting about this person or something about the conversation you want to remember. You can mention that in your follow up.
Make it a point to follow up, but be strategic in how you do it. Think about what benefit you can bring to them and always ask what will be the best way to stay in touch – whether it be email, phone or via social networks like LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter.
Here’s what I hope you take from this article:
Networking is great for business. It’s doable and it becomes easier the more you do it. PLUS, when you enter the room with the intention to help, it reduces the pressure and you’ll often be amazed at the quality of the conversations and the quality of business relationships you can create. You can do it!
Happy Networking!!
Grab your copy of my FREE report: 9 Effective Ways to Get More Clients
When you decide to take your business online, creating a website is usually the first step. A website acts as a 24/7 online representation of your brand and allows people to interact, engage and become familiar with you, your products and your services.
Your site is often the first impression potential clients have of you and it is the perfect place for your target audience or potential clients to get to know, like and trust you – even when you are not around. Thus you want it to portray the right message.
In order to get the right message out, it is important to understand and know the “why”, “what” and “who” behind your site: Why are you creating a website? What do you hope to accomplish with it? Who will you be writing for?
Tweetable
Know the “why”, “what” and “who” to attract clients with your website. Click Here to Tweet
To help you, here are 5 Website Strategy Secrets to think about when you plan and set-up your website for attracting more clients.
1. Know your clients and who you write for.
Let’s think about it. With over 2 billion people on the internet, what will make your site stand out and grab the attention of your visitors so they want to know more? A beautiful design might do it at first, but it is really the content on your site that will entice your visitors to take action. An important thing to remember is that your website isn’t about you and what you do, it’s about the problems you solve for people and the difference you can make in their lives. So the better you know your clients, the more specific you can get and the more your audience will feel like you understand their problems and you’re speaking directly to them. When this happens, they’ll recognize you as someone who can help them and will happily spend time on your site and start to connect and interact with you.
2. Know what you want to accomplish online
For me, the #1 goal of your website is for your visitors to take some action – and the #1 action you want them to take is to give you their contact details. So, make sure you have a way to capture their information (e.g. via an email list service like Aweber or similar) for you to continue building a relationship with them.
Apart from capturing contact details, it is also important to strategically lead your visitors through your site. Think about the process and flow of your website. e.g. What do I want my ideal client to see first and foremost before anything else? Once they see that, what do I want them to do next? Once they do that, what do I want them to do next? And then?
3. Display positive results from people who have worked with you.
Testimonials can become one of your best marketing materials because it provides social proof of how good you are. It is not only you telling prospects about what you can do, but through testimonials, your previous clients emphasize it…. and to tell you the truth, your previous clients can sell you better than you can. Success stories from your clients create trust and prove that what you say is actually true. So get testimonials and prominently display them on your site so prospects can see how you have helped other people that were in a situation similar to theirs. You can have a dedicated page for testimonials, and also use them strategically throughout your site
4. Be You
One of the best ways to differentiate yourself from anyone else out there, is to let your personality show through your website. Just be you. Also show visitors who want to get to know you better, how they can connect with you in other ways as well. If you are connected on social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Youtube etc. invite visitors to join you on those platforms so they can engage with you in other ways and build an even a stronger relationship through connecting with you.
5. Have control over your own site
Your website should not keep you in chains. There are many instances – even daily that you want to update or change content on your site and you do not want to ask a web designer to do it for you all the time. When you have full control over your site, you have the freedom and flexibility to do what you need to do online anytime and anywhere.
Very important. In cases were you want to use a web designer, don’t let them build your site on some proprietary content management system (CMS) that only they know how to use. I recommend getting a designer that can use WordPress as platform. It’s popular, easy to learn and use and in the end you can have full control over all your website needs – even when your designer is out of reach for a 2 month vacation in Hawaii.
Okay, it’s reflection time… Which one of these website strategy secrets can you improve on? Let’s hear about it in the comments below…:)
Grab your copy of my FREE report: 9 Effective Ways to Get More Clients
Did you know that you can save a lot of time, get more clients and run your business more effectively when you get organized and start using systems for everything you do?
Doing marketing, drawing clients into your pipeline, staying in touch with prospects and clients, scheduling client consultations, converting prospects into clients, keeping records of client communication, billing clients, tracking income and expense etc. etc. are all tasks you do on a regularly (even daily) basis. When you create a system around each of these tasks or activities, it makes it easier to do; it saves time and can even run on autopilot when you are not in the office.
But let us first clarify what a system is…
Without going too much into details, a system is a set of steps, methods or procedures you follow to carry out a specific activity, perform a task, or solve a problem.
Thus, to create a system for a specific activity in your business you’ll need to know all the specific steps you follow – from start to end – to complete that activity.
In practice, creating systems do not need to be complicated. The only requirement is the systems should work best for YOU and YOUR business. Ultimately the purpose of a system is to save you time and to put most of your repetitive tasks on autopilot so they can take care of themselves with no to minimum involvement from you.
Systems save time and you can put most of your repetitive tasks on autopilot. Click to Tweet
So, let’s look at a few examples of how you can get organized and use systems to get more clients, while saving a lot of time.
Doing Marketing: Let’s say you frequently attend networking events as one of your marketing strategies. A simple system to develop around networking is to schedule the dates of all the networking events in your calendar, set a reminder for e.g. 2 days before the event to allow you to prepare if needed. This way you won’t forget about the event and will be well prepared when you attend. That is a simple system that can help you stay consistent in attending in-person events, saves time since you know it is scheduled and you will be reminded in time and you’ll feel more confident when you show up, since you had ample time to prepare.
Filling your Client Pipeline:An example of a system to fill your client pipeline is to use your website and email marketing software to capture the contact details of visitors to your website when they sign up for your free offer. You can direct all your marketing efforts (the people you meet at in-person and networking events, all your off-line and online marketing) to your website and let your well-oiled system takes care of getting these web visitors into your client pipeline so you can stay in touch with them. This is a system that you can set up once and then almost forget about… and the best thing about it – it runs on autopilot while you sleep or are miles away on vacation
Staying in touch:This is extremely important to ensure your prospects don’t forget about you and for you to build relationships with your prospects and keep your services and offerings in front of them. One way to stay in touch is to publish a regular ezine (electronic newsletter). An example of creating a system around your e-zine is to create a list of topics you want to share with your audience on regular intervals and then to schedule those topics into an editorial calendar of when each will be send to your list. An important part of this system is also to schedule the time in your calendar to write the content and populate your email marketing system. When you use software like e.g. Aweber you can write your content in advance and schedule it to go out on a specific date, thus saving you time and still keeping the communications go out when you take a well-deserved 4 week vacation.
Convert prospects into clients: Once people are interested in working with you, a new client conversion procedure or system can do wonders for your business. An example of a system here is to have a form on your website where prospects can enquire about your services. Once the form is completed you can use an automated system to set-up an initial complimentary Discovery Session where you get together on the phone to see if you are a good fit for working together. Then you can use a specific pre-developed script or format to conduct the discovery session to lead your prospect from just inquiring about your services to becoming eager and willing to work with you. So you do not have to take hours to prepare for a first consultation, because your system takes care of most of it.
New Client Intake: An example of a system when a client says “yes” to working with you is to have a client information pack (or welcome pack) ready to send to this client. The information pack and client communications can be pre-developed and then customized per client to save you lots of time and prevent you from re-inventing the wheel for each new client.
With workable and automated systems in place, you can work more effectively, get more clients and accomplish most of your daily client related administrative tasks in a matter of minutes, not hours.
Systems save you time and much frustration. It also allows you to spend your time taking a well-deserved break OR getting more of those “yummi” clients and making more money.
Your assignment for today:
Pick one thing. . .just one thing in your business and create a system around it.
Start documenting and write down all the steps you take to complete that.
Then, evaluate what you can do to automate / facilitate all the repetitive activities to help you save time with this in future.
The ultimate goal is to create systems that don’t require your attention every minute of the day.
To Your Success
Grab your copy of my FREE report: “9 Effective Ways to Get More Clients”
Napoleon Hill said in his book Think and Grow Rich that “One of the most common causes of failure is the habit of quitting when one is overtaken by temporary defeat. Every person is guilty of this mistake at one time or another.”
The moment you’ve decided to start your own business and enter the entrepreneurial world, you will experience many up’s and down’s. Sometimes you even run into situations that are so bad you just want to throw in the towel and quit.
The truth however is: if you want to succeed, you need to keep going!
Ignore the setbacks, ignore the temporary defeats, ignore the people who want to bring you down, ignore the “no’s” – and keep going! You might be near!
Even when it’s really tough, stay focused on your dream, learn from the setbacks, make some course corrections, get the help you need and just keep going!
Today, I want to share with you one of the inspiring stories in Napoleon Hill’s “Think and Grow Rich” about this exact situation. The story is titled…
“Three Feet From Gold…
One of the most common causes of failure is the habit of quitting when one is overtaken by temporary defeat. Every person is guilty of this mistake at one time or another.”
An uncle of R. U. Darby was caught by the “gold fever” in the gold-rush days, and went west to DIG AND GROW RICH. He had never heard that more gold has been mined from the brains of men than has ever been taken from the earth. He staked a claim and went to work with pick and shovel. The going was hard, but his lust for gold was definite.
After weeks of labor, he was rewarded by the discovery of the shining ore. He needed machinery to bring the ore to the surface. Quietly, he covered up the mine, retraced his footsteps to his home in Williamsburg, Maryland, told his relatives and a few neighbors of the “strike.” They got together money for the needed machinery, had it shipped. The uncle and Darby went back to work the mine.
The first car of ore was mined, and shipped to a smelter. The returns proved they had one of the richest mines in Colorado! A few more cars of that ore would clear the debts. Then would come the big killing in profits.
Down went the drills! Up went the hopes of Darby and Uncle! Then something happened! The vein of gold ore disappeared! They had come to the end of the rainbow, and the pot of gold was no longer there! They drilled on, desperately trying to pick up the vein again — all to no avail.
Finally, they decided to QUIT.
They sold the machinery to a junk man for a few hundred dollars, and took the train back home. Some “junk” men are dumb, but not this one! He called in a mining engineer to look at the mine and do a little calculating. The engineer advised that the project had failed, because the owners were not familiar with “fault lines.” His calculations showed that the vein would be found JUST THREE FEET FROM WHERE THE DARBYS HAD STOPPED DRILLING! That is exactly where it was found!
The “Junk” man took millions of dollars in ore from the mine, because he knew enough to seek expert counsel before giving up. Most of the money that went into the machinery was procured through the efforts of R. U. Darby, who was then a very young man. The money came from his relatives and neighbors, because of their faith in him. He paid back every dollar of it, although he was years in doing so.
Long afterward, Mr. Darby recouped his loss many times over, when he made the discovery that DESIRE can be transmuted into gold. The discovery came after he went into the business of selling life insurance.
Remembering that he lost a huge fortune, because he STOPPED three feet from gold, Darby profited by the experience in his chosen work, by the simple method of saying to himself, “I stopped three feet from gold, but I will never stop because men say `no’ when I ask them to buy insurance.”
Darby is one of a small group of fewer than fifty men who sell more than a million dollars in life insurance annually. He owes his “stickability” to the lesson he learned from his “quitability” in the gold mining business.
Before success comes in any man’s life, he is sure to meet with much temporary defeat, and, perhaps, some failure. When defeat overtakes a man, the easiest and most logical thing to do is to QUIT. That is exactly what the majority of men do.
More than five hundred of the most successful men this country has ever known, told the author their greatest success came just one step beyond the point at which defeat had overtaken them. Failure is a trickster with a keen sense of irony and cunning. It takes great delight in tripping one when success is almost within reach.”
So when you feel you’re ready to give up, don’t quite! You may be three feet from gold!
To Your Success
PS – If you enjoyed this article, you’re welcome to share! I’ve provided options just below to make it easy for you.
PPS – While you are here, grab a copy of my guide on: 9 Essential Tactics to Get More Clients below!
One of the biggest challenges in selling services is that your services are intangible. Unlike products, it can’t be seen, touched, or tasted.
When customers buy a product, they know they’ll pay a fixed amount for that product and they pretty much know what they’ll get for their money.
Selling services however is a totally different ball game. When a client “buys” a service, they also know what they want to get from it, but they often don’t know how long it will take and how much they’ll need to pay in the process to get to the results they want. This is due to the fact that services are often charged for by the hour – the client pays for each hour or session they work with you until the desired results are achieved.
The problem is: charging by the hourly builds up some resistance and impacts on a client’s buying decisions.
Other negatives of charging by the hour include the following: it puts a limit on your earning potential because you won’t be able to raise your hourly rates indefinitely. There are also just a limited amount of hours in each day, week or year that you can work with clients so you can really only work with a limited number of clients in a given time period.
Furthermore, selling services by the hour makes marketing and getting clients more difficult because clients are often resistant to pay high hourly rates as they are uncertain if they’ll receive value for the amount they pay per hour.
So, what’s the secret to solving this dilemma?
The secret is to position your services as a product.
Today’s Tweetable Tip
The secret to selling services and making more money at it is to create services packages.
Packaging your services simply means that you group a number of services together and then sell them as a group deal or package. This transforms your services and makes it look more like a product; having a specific outcome and fixed price and thus making it easier for clients to buy.
Benefits of service packages include things like:
They help you to break away from the “time-for-money” trap;
Involves a fixed and/or longer time period;
They are based on the value a client will receive and typically “promise” a specific end result;
You can charge higher fees than charging by the hour;
The package has a fixed price, making it easier to buy.
To illustrate a services package, let’s say you are an image consultant. Previously you’ve been selling consultations at an average of $97 per hour and could effectively work with only 6 clients in a day. So your income was approximately $582 per day. It all went well for a while but eventually you feel you work yourself to death and your clients do not really experience the full benefits of what you can do for them.
This is when you decide to look at your services differently and rather create service packages where you group a number of your most popular services into one package and offer it for example as a “One-Day Makeover” package for $997. This package now includes a wardrobe assessment, color consultation, a 3hr personalized shopping trip and some other nice goodies. This package allows you to spend more time with one client; they experience much more value and way better results AND it almost doubles your income per day.
Take note that with a service package, you’re giving your clients a defined result (a “make-over” as in our example). It has a clear time frame and a set price. So clients know what they will get and what they will pay for it, making it easier for them to buy.
With service packages, you in effect raise your income per day, work less and can focus on the work you enjoy more. Your clients get better results. They love you for it and are happy to spread the word about you and your services. It is a win-win relationship.
Create Service Packages at Different Levels & Price Points.
The idea here is to offer different services packages to give clients options to work with you. E.g. you can create 3 different packages – Package 1 at a small investment, Package 2 at a medium investment and Package 3 as your top of the line option. You’ll often see these presented as Gold, Silver, and Bronze packages, but you can be more creative with your package names.
For example: Let’s take the image consultant again. She can for example create the following packages.
Package 1:Colour analyses (lowest priced package)
In this package she includes for example:
An evaluation of the 12 different colour groups you fall in.
What fabrics and patterns suit you best.
Hair colour and Eye colour analyses.
Face shape analyses to help you select eye-wear, hairstyles, earrings, hats etc.
Package 2:Figure and Style Analysis (mid-level investment)
This package can include for example:
A full color analyses (everything from package 1) PLUS
Figure and style analyses
Wardrobe assessment
Package 3: The New You – One Day Makeover (most expensive)
This package can includes for example everything from package 1&2 Plus
A personalized shopping trip
Make-up lessons
**Please note I’m not an image consultant, and the ideas / examples presented here might not be spot on for a professional image consultant business. They are just used for illustrative purposes 🙂
The reality is that creating different packages at different price points make it simpler for someone to buy a service package that meets their needs at a price point they are willing to pay. It is also easier to “upsell” people into your higher priced packages because they can easily see the added value.
Thus, working with service packages makes marketing much easier. Your clients will perceive more value from working with you, and you will reap the benefit of greater sales and income.
And by the way… even if you think you don’t, you do have package solutions in your business! No matter what services you provide or what type of business you have – in some way, shape, or form you can package your services to solve one or more of your client’s problems!
Love & Success!
P.S. If you want more support with structuring and creating products and service packages to leverage your time and income, get in touch! I help my clients create offerings that sell, so that they not only make a difference in their clients’ lives, but in return are handsomely rewarded for making that difference!
Francis van Wyk is an experienced business and client attraction mentor who supports women solo-preneurs with planning and achieving business success online.
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