building my business Archives

Are you a client magnet for finding new business? Or is attracting more people to your business a struggle for you? Some people are naturally great at sales, others are more comfortable in the creative space and being of service.

Here are 10 tips to help you boost your business mojo to attract people and close that sale.

1. Celebrate your old clients

We all know it is easier to work with previous or current clients instead of finding new people to serve. We need to remember how to spread the business karma with your previous clients and not forget how much you appreciated them when you were getting paid.

Business is about creating and keeping relationships open, so the next time your clients need a problem solved, you are the person they think of straight away.

Why not offer clients a free coffee at a local cafe, referral fees for new clients, enter them in your client competition for movie tickets or vouchers, testimonials for their products, shout-outs on your own social media channels, a profile on your website?

2. Send a snail mail message to both old & prospective clients, with a personal offer (no slimy sales or hidden agendas)

Send a thank you to your clients via the post. We are deep within an online haze at the moment and who doesn’t love the surprise finding a personal note in our mailbox?

You can make it personal by printing off a photo you have taken or ask a graphic designer to help you create something just for your clientele. Spend time creating a personal message of thanks and tell your customers how much you appreciate working with them.

3. Think like a customer NOT a business owner

Work backwards. What are your most common client queries, complaints or problems? Brainstorm new ways to solve these problems in a package, service or offering that is beneficial to the customer.

Once you have developed your new package, offer it for a limited time to entice the public to try new your product.

As business owners we think we know who our ideal markets are as well as their problems but often who ends up purchasing our service or product is a surprise.

4. Involve yourself in a fundraiser

Does your business have a charity fundraiser that is close to your heart? You can ask your staff & clients to bring their families and friends to a nominated fundraiser as a social event, to raise donations for your cause and create relationships with your customers.

Crowd funding or online fundraising websites are often a fun way for people to interact with your business without over committing themselves by their time or resources.

5. Invite clients to a business sundowner

One small business I know has regular sundowner picnics in their local park or pub throughout the year, inviting client families and partners to mingle and get to know each other.

This works especially well during the festive season as people wind down and are open to socialising without being “busy”.

Each client places their business card into a hat for a raffle prize or you can place everyone’s own business card out on a table for others to take for their own resource (as long as they are not direct competitors with each other).

6. Business forums/social media groups/networking groups

If your business can create a creative meeting place for your staff, customers and other similar business to connect then a thriving community can only enhance your business.

Social media is an easy (and often free) way to connect with each other online to create relationships with your customers and an easy way for friends of friends to find your business.

Many successful networking groups work because they focus on helping fellow business owners. They also work because although everyone wants to own and run their own business but it is lonely at the top.

Communication and bouncing off each other for ideas works well in the flexibility of social media and networking situations.

7. Co-working spaces are the new black

Co-working spaces are huge these days. If you are a freelancer, go visit one and place your advert on their jobs boards or websites, mix with the people!

A hive of activity in small business communities, co-working spaces are the perfect venue to make connections, value relationships and find interesting people for new projects to complement your business.

8. Is your business website ready?

Need new clients? You need a website. How many times have your heard that one? Well, you do need a website in this day and age but is your website doing its job properly?

Does your website copy attract new clients with the appropriate keywords and SEO phrases? Do those key phrases cause your potential clients to take action?

Are your clients signing up to your email website list? What information are you regularly updating on Google via a business blog?

Establishing a digital footprint is a must for gaining new clients by creating trust, credibility and authority in the online world.

9. Reach out to a similar business and offer to work together in some way

Reaching out to competitors is not usually the done thing. We are supposed to keep our competitors at arm’s length, but you may be surprised with the outcome if you do connect. We all have strengths that we like to specialise in but if you choose to find a competitor to complement your business you may be able to work on a win-win situation.

For example, if your counselling business specialises in relationships and divorce issues, you could work with a business coach when your client would like to start fresh with a new career. If you have a graphic designer company which specialises in websites, you could recommend your competition for copywriting work or paper promotional materials. Any overflow work can be referred to your competition then they would then return the favour.

10. Work on your own special interest outside of work. Eg. Bike riding, travel, golf, volunteering

We often are more relaxed and open with people who share a similar passion or experience with ourselves. My husband often pulls on the lycra (don’t judge) and joins in with the early morning bike riding masses. Mostly he rides alone or in small groups, but often competes in charity rides and is always getting kudos via a fellow colleagues Strava app. (Sort of like Facebook for athletes). Most people in his bike riding group know what he does for a living and he has received many referrals and leads simply by following his passion or interest outside work.

Being creative and thinking outside the square for getting new clients is important for the success of your business. Being original in making connections make you memorable to clients and your customers will feed energised to work with you.

Lisa Berson

Lisa is a freelance writer, copywriter and blogger based in WA, whose writing interests are careers, women’s lifestyle, parenting and travel. Find out more at www.lisaberson.com

Photo credit: pixabay.com

I met Alli Grant at a quiet café in the Brisbane suburbs. A working mother who juggles family life with her own business, Alli & Co., she apologised for being late because she’d just come from a Mother’s Day event at her son’s school. Upon first glance, she seems like one of those women straight out of a magazine, who has it all together.

But as I would soon discover, she’s been through a lot of struggles to get where she is today, and freely admits that she still struggles daily. “I’m not okay, you’re not okay–and that’s okay” is the message she wants to get out there, and that’s the basis of both The Swagger Project and their Feeling Fearless event (with The Collective’s Lisa Messenger in August).

She’s been around the block, starting off in a large Australasian PR agency doing consulting work with big consumer brands. But she burned out in her late twenties – her life was falling apart – so she packed up and moved to the Sunshine Coast (“As you do!” she says, laughing over her drink), where she worked for APN News and Media until she found the courage to strike out on her own.

What were your first steps after deciding to go it yourself?

…it made me realise how much we struggle with our vulnerabilitiesI did what I knew, which was mainly PR. Then I was asked by Profile Magazine to be their editor, where I worked for 5 years (and launched a second magazine in North Queensland). At Profile Magazine I did a lot of real, raw and honest features on women, and it made me realise how much we struggle with our vulnerabilities.

So my friend and business partner, Genine Howard, and I launched Alli and Genine, a business that was all about helping women with their issues. We published a book called Issues? What Issues? and marketed ourselves as “Chicks with Issues”. We produced magazines, wrote blogs, did a lot of public speaking, had a Queensland-wide radio show, and there was even talk of a national radio show.

I notice that your company is now called Alli & Co.

Last August, Genine felt that she had to change directions and turn her focus elsewhere. And I understand—she absolutely had to do what was right for her and her family. But it was a really hard time for me. We’d been working on this for 18 months, then it was all gone! I had to rebuild, yet again.

That must have been hard.

I wanted it to be about the movement towards cutting the bullshit, and admitting we’re all struggling.It was! I cried a lot (laughs). But it helped to have a very supportive husband, amazing women around me, and a supportive family as well. In the end it came down to a lot of self reflection and appreciating that I’d come so far. Believing it was worth it, and that the fight was worth it. So I had to pick myself up, dust myself off, and rebuild. It’s so important to me to now share my whole journey, both the highs and lows, and be the trailblazer.

After Genine left, I realised I didn’t want to do it alone. I also realised that I’d formed many amazing alliances and relationships along the way, with women who were experts in different areas—mindset, money, social media, and so on. I decided that I wanted Alli & Co. to be about the company I keep, than about me. I wanted it to be about the movement towards cutting the bullshit, and admitting we’re all struggling.

As women, we judge each other so harshly. I think it’s because we judge ourselves so harshly. The world we’re creating with The Swagger Project is one where you can share your issues – especially in business. We should be real, raw and honest and support each other—and realise that life is bloody hard.

So how did the Swagger Project come about?

You have to acknowledge that mindset and business are both intertwined.The idea of creating The Swagger Project was not to compete with anything out there, but to fill what I saw as a gap. So many women in small and micro-businesses either don’t know where to turn, or need guidance but don’t have the money for it. Most programs start in the thousands of dollars. So I asked myself, how do I bring all this knowledge down to the core level so women can afford it at $40 a week?

It was also important that the program’s content wasn’t just about business. You have to acknowledge that mindset and business are both intertwined. We not only focus on the mindset and life balance, but also technical skills. The goal is to build these women up to a level where they can afford the more expensive programs.

How did you form the team? What qualities were you looking for?

They had to be women who I already knew quite well through business, or women who had a really strong reputation. I looked at areas that needed to be covered and realised I already knew women who were experts in each of them. But what it came down to was my gut feeling. We started off with a coffee together, and now they’re all inseparable.

Feeling Fearless is The Swagger Project’s next big event—what’s it about?

There’s this thing I call “bullshit dominos”There’s this thing I call “bullshit dominos”. I’m dropping off my kid at school when I bump into another mother who asks how I am. Because she seems to have the perfect life, I bullshit about how I’m fine. She might be struggling, but she also says she has it together, because I did. And on it goes. As soon as one of us drops the façade, it makes it so much easier for everyone else to also share. That’s what the whole Alli and Co. world is about for us, and that’s what we want to start with Feeling Fearless.

I have very much seen the power of women dropping the façade in a safe environment. I saw Lisa Messenger (from The Collective Magazine) at an event in Brisbane —her talk wasn’t just about her successes, but a raw and brutally honest story about her challenges. It made me think we needed to do an event like that in Brisbane, but just for small and micro business women.

We have Lisa as our keynote speaker, and four of our awesome Swagger Expert Chicks will be speaking as well. If you come for the day (August 22^nd), not only will you leave inspired, but with a lot of useful information you can put to use in your business or career to help you move forward.

Do you see these events becoming a regular thing?

I want to make them feel inspired, make them feel worthy. Eventually, I want to get a whole ton of women together a few times a year. I want to make them feel inspired, make them feel worthy. Alli and Co. isn’t an events or a networking company. We want to bring together all these women who are growing small and micro-businesses in their lounge rooms or studies, and remind them they’re not alone in their struggles. It’s about connecting online and in the real world, being inspired, learning some cool stuff, but most importantly feeling like you’re not alone – and you’re perfectly normal in your “issues”.

Finally, can you give all our readers two good reasons to come along to Feeling Fearless?

Inspiration. Being in a room with like-minded women who are equally as scared, flawed, imperfect and terrified as each other – but not afraid to admit to that.
Education. It’s not just all fluffy mindset stuff. You’ll leave with things you can get back to your own business, or even your career, and know that you can implement these things that will help you push through those fears and move forward in your business.

Feeling Fearless will be held in Brisbane on August 22nd, with the venue to be confirmed closer to the date. You can read more about The Swagger Project here, and pick up your tickets to Feeling Fearless here (you know you want to!)