Strategy for Getting New Clients
One of the early problems that a small business faces, when they start, is – Who is going to hire my services? This is a valid concern because no one is going to give you business till you prove yourself. You see so, the first few clients are a challenge, and the first one is the toughest to get. This brings out the need to have a practical, workable strategy for getting new clients.
At the same time, this strategy should not be limited just to getting new clients, but to get good quality clients. This will help your business not just to survive, but also to thrive. This is what the strategy would look like.
Ask for Help From Your Close Family and Close Friends
Make a list of all your closest family members and your closest friends. Approach every one of them and ask them for work straight away. You can be candid by saying that you are just starting out and so need their support. Ask them to spread the word.
Don’t speculate or assume that anyone in your closest network will give you an order or not. Just do this process religiously with ALL contacts in your closest network. You might be surprised to see you getting work from the most unexpected quarters. So, just commit yourself to the process, without speculating or worrying about results. Results will come!
This is the simple first step to our strategy for getting new clients.
People who Care For you, Will Buy from You
Why does this work? That’s because your family and close friends know you and care for you. So, they are much more likely to give you their first order. They are also likely to spread the word to their close friends and family, who in turn, are going to listen to them as yours did listen to you! This is going to cause a kind of ripple effect, which should get you a few orders.
Do not worry about revenues or profits at this stage. Just execute what you get, and build your portfolio.
Staying Engaged With Existing Clients
As you get the first few (like 2-5) orders as described above, make it a point to keep asking them for additional work from time to time.
Find reasons to connect with those who are not from your direct network (like friends’ friends). In some cases, you can offer them certain premium client privileges, like a nice discount, freebies, gifts, etc. When you do this, you stay at the attention of your existing customers. This will result in them naturally referring you more and more into their network.
As your clients increase over time, it is easy to “get busy” and forget them. That would be a great mistake. Your existing clients will forever be the backbone of your business. You must stay engaged with your existing clients as long as you are in business. This is a life-long practice.
Leveraging Your Portfolio
With 5-10 customers, you’ve already got for yourself a reasonably decent starting-level portfolio. You can now cast the net further, to get more customers based on this portfolio. Now, you are dealing with cold prospects, meaning that you start to engage with people who are not in your friends & family or your referral network.
At this stage in your business, you will get work from existing clients, on one hand. On the other hand, though, you will find it hard to convert cold prospects into paying clients.
Why are Cold Prospects so Difficult to Get?
Cold Prospects are difficult to talk to and even more difficult to convert. This is because they don’t trust you. And why should they? At the end of the day, you might have the best portfolio in the world, but people will buy only from people they trust. And people don’t trust you yet. Why? Because they don’t know you yet.
This difficulty gets us into the crucial part of our strategy for getting new clients.
Introducing Branding
At this stage of your business, you need to let people know who you are, what you do, and most importantly, why should they buy from you.
Start by asking yourself why someone should buy from you, meaning what is your USP (Unique Sales Proposition – Also called as your Market Positioning). In addition, you also start to make a list of the services that you provide to your prospective customer. This is termed Business Value.
Simply put, your brand is defined simply by combining these 2 considerations, viz. USP and Business Value. I have a detailed article on this blog that explains exactly and in a step-by-step manner, how small businesses can build their brand.
Establishing and promoting your brand is crucial to your success in acquiring cold customers. And so an important point to remember here is this – You need to promote your brand if you want to sell to the crowd!
Ways to Promoting your Brand
There are many ways to build and promote your brand. I have enlisted two of them below. These are enough to get small businesses to get traction.
1. Build your Website
By the time your business reaches this stage, you will be in conversations where your prospect will inquire about your website. This can sometimes get awkward when you have to defend yourself in not having one.
Your Website is your personal or business identity in cyberspace. Treat it as such.
Your website should contain information about who you are, what you do, what your products and services are, and what you stand for. Your website should reflect your brand in the truest sense.
Unless you are a web developer yourself, it is pragmatic to get your website designed by a website professional. It’s not worth putting in the time to learn how to make a website, and then due to your lack of experience, spend hours getting things right.
To get the most out of a website professional, you should be clear on certain aspects of your website. I have an article here that enlists website-building considerations. Do the homework as specified in the article, and you are ready to go!
Once your website is up, and you promote it the RIGHT way, you are on the way to getting new quality clients!
2. Make the RIGHT Social Media Channel Choices
Choose 2or 3 Social media networks where you can commit to posting regularly. LinkedIn, Instagram, and Twitter are the most favorite starting points. YouTube is also a good option if you are not shy to show your face.
A word of caution, though. Don’t commit to too many social media channels, because social media channels will work only when you post consistently. It will be difficult to have this consistency if you choose too many social media channels. Better instead to start with 2 or 3, and then work your way up with more as your business expands, and you are then equipped to hire social media content managers.
What Exactly Should I Post on My Social Media Channels?
Simply put, you need to post stuff that is based on your brand. Map out your brand to the day-to-day activities that you do.
Secondly, drive your prospects from social media channels to your website. Remember that your end game is to get people to visit your website. Hence promote your brand on social media channels and then entice them to visit your website.
Do you think that enticing people to visit your website is not your cup of tea? Relax, this feeling is normal. Start doing stuff and you will slowly get proficient at it. Just get to doing it.
Putting it All Together
Getting Clients for your Business is a combination of short-term and long-term play. Go too long-term, and you won’t take off. Play too short-term, and you won’t be able to scale. The pot of honey is in the center!
In the short term, get to your friends and family and ask for work. In parallel, start building out your brand on paper and start figuring out how you would want to be seen by cold prospective clients.
As you get business from your friends and family, do an outstanding job for them, and then ask them to refer your services to their friends and family. Slowly, you will start to build your referral business.
Again, and in parallel, be clear on what you want your website to be and get it done. Also, start posting on social media channels that you have chosen and post on them consistently. Drive traffic from your social media channels to your website.
This is a simple, yet powerful strategy for getting new clients
What is not covered in this article is another important aspect of getting customers. That is paid media. Deciding whether you want to run google, youtube, or Facebook ads and then running your ads on that platform is an involved topic, which deserves special treatment. For now, though, all that is covered in this article is more than enough to set the ball rolling.
If you get this right, and with some luck on your side, you will be making a full-time income, which would be more than your day job. Just remember that there are no quick fixes in life and no shortcuts. It takes time. It takes failures. It takes pain and disappointment. It takes moments of self-doubt. But you will get there for sure.
Good Luck!