If Getting Partners Feels Painful, There Is Still Hope! (Part 1)

How many of you are planning on going out of business this year? No one? That is great. So what do you feel is the most important thing that is keeping you in business? Getting customers and business partners is right! So do you find it easy and effortless to attract them and do you have all the customers and business partners you could possible need?

For most of us getting new people can feel like such a struggle and can almost be painful in the effort it takes to get them. That is not how we want to feel is it? Absolutely not! And you know if it is feeling that way to you, your business is suffering because you are avoiding it or only doing what is absolutely necessary. I say stop that and let’s find ways that you enjoy getting customers and business partners.

Because if you find ways to enjoy getting customers and business partners, you will be able to do it more, and it will be easier and your business will grow to magnificent new heights.

So that is what we are going to talk about here today. Are you ready to get new clients and enjoy your business again and make money too?

Most businesses have one, two or maybe three ways to get clients and grow their business. That is certainly not enough for growth and definitely not enough for success. And we all want Dynamic Success in our business. So we are going to look at ten different ways for super strategic growth.

The first one of these is finding and going after your Ideal 100 List. Too often people want to be everything to everybody. Or they have 1000 prospects and they try and go after all of them. Now the numbers I am using you want to adjust to your size business, if you need 1000 ideal clients out of your 10,000 list then adjust. If you are a one person show and 10 client is all you can handle out of your 100 list than go that way.

The main thing I am getting at here is that you have to stop trying to get everyone and working so hard. Work brilliantly instead. Figure out who your top 100 would be if you could get them.

Who would buy the most often and who would spend the most money each time? Because you are going to have to do the marketing anyway, wouldn’t you rather get the good clients instead of continuing to get the little clients just because they are easier but have little potential?

An example here would be; if you have a telephone company that is struggling to get clients and when they did get clients they were getting ones that only had a few telephones that would need to be replaced with a new system. But when they start going after their Ideal 100 list, things change. They also needed a new telephone system and though it takes a little more time to get them they were clients that needed 100 or 300 new phones to go with that system. Think of the difference in money they would make on those top 100 clients lists.

That is where your efforts need to be spent. Those are the ones you really need to go after to substantially grow your business. Take a moment right now and think about who in your line of work would be your Ideal 100. Don’t hold back, don’t put stop signs up, don’t check them off because you think you can’t get them, just think about who they would be and what your business would look like if you had them as part of your base. Would that make a huge difference in your bottom line? Couldn’t that be a big determining factor on how successful your business is going to be this year? I think so.

The second business building idea is building Top of Mind Awareness by using Stack marketing. Some of you may be familiar with creating Top of Mind Awareness. It simple means you must come to people’s minds first when they are ready to buy. I think a great example is the way car manufacturers name their cars. When you hear Taurus, or Fusion, or F150 you KNOW that that is a Ford car because that is how they incorporate all of their advertising; they say Ford Fusion, Ford Taurus.

Then you have cars like Acura. They have a RL, TL, and TSX – what does that mean? It doesn’t bring anything to mind. Unless you are an Acura fan or car owner you probably don’t know one from the other. So Ford has done a great job of Top of Mind Awareness in their car naming department anyway.

We need to do the same thing when we are doing any marketing. We have to know what message we are clearly trying to get out to people. When we have that message clearly stated we then use it in all of our marketing such as when we do:

• Personal Contact 2. Direct Mail 3. Internet 4. Company Brochure 5. Advertisement 6. Press Release 7. Educate – Trade Shows

When you use all of these together with one message then you now have Stack Marketing. This is so much more effective than different messages going out.

The third business building magnet is piggybacking on other companies or what some call finding your Fusion partners. This is something you can use in many different creative ways. What you want to do with this is take your product or service and figure out what are people buying before they buy your service. Then think of what people buy or what service they use after they use or buy yours. These are the people that you want to create a Fusion partnership with. Think of all the possibilities if you work with these people!

You can share lists of people. You can create joint ventures. You can have a party together. Anything that will bring all of you together can create strength in your business that is unsurpassed. You are growing your client base not just in the number of people who may become your client, but you are providing a service that will give your clients the ability to bring all of their needs together and quickly get all that they want. How powerful is that?!

So you become the connector for this client to get all the things they need by being part of the before and after.

This is something that builds a client for life. They appreciate you and what you have done for them. That is a good thing.

An example of this may be you are in network marketing and you sell skin care products. You could connect with a beauty shop before and a clothing shop after. Because often when people are thinking about change, they want to do the whole thing. So what a great connection! You could have a ‘day of all over beauty’, where they start at the beauty shop, get their hair done nicely, have your products there and then they take care of their skin and put on makeup using your products. Then they would go next door and shop at the unique clothing store. They leave feeling so exhilarated, so good about themselves and then so good about you because you sponsored it. You have a new client who is going to be very loyal.

Another example may be that you do computer networking. So your before person is someone who does a really nice job of rebuilding computers, for the first time users who just needs a good basic machine. Your after person may be a trainer who teaches them how to do some simple computer skills like Windows, Word, Excel, things like that. So you have this wonderful combination of people who can create a great experience for this new computer user. Again you are building loyalty with this person because when they need to upgrade and add wireless connections or something, you will be the person that will come to mind.

See how all of this works together so that you create these Fusion partners that help everyone involved. It is an incredible way to get and retain clients and get referrals too.

That takes me to the fourth way to build your business. And that is referrals. Okay you may be saying; I know that one - got that. If you do know this, how many new customers and business partners are you getting from referrals? How are some of the ways you all are getting referrals right now?

I think a really good simple way to get referrals is to ask those who you know.

What I mean by this is you have been building relationships all throughout your life. What if you called your friend and said pull out your rolodex, who do you know that does or needs… Let them give you a list. They are doing you a favor and you can do a good service for their referral. It all comes around to being helpful for everyone.

Now it is important that you show that you appreciate their time and effort in helping you by sending a card, a gift, or a percentage of the money you made by those referrals. That encourages them to help you in the future. Another way to get referrals is to insist that that is part of doing business with you. Chet Holmes talks about a guy that came to one of his seminars. This guy was a dentist and was struggling to get clients and keep them like many of his fellow colleagues. Then he did two things that really made his business different and create much more wealth for him AND much more time off.

He started telling his clients they could only become clients if they recommended someone else. Now he was scared he was going to lose business but he went with it anyway. And people would refer others to him. It got to the point where he never had to search for new clients; in fact you could only come to him if you were referred by someone else.

Wow, how incredible was that? But he took it even one step further. He locked the door even during business hours. You had to ring the bell to get into his office. So that said only people that had been referred can come in because he doesn’t take clients that walk in. Really super concept! Because now his business was always full, he was making twice as much money as most dentists and he started working half the hours so he could spend more time with his family. Would you like to see something like that happen to you?

So how can you use referrals as part of your business? A casual ‘well if you know of anyone that can use my service’ is not going to get you much business.

You have to have a formal way that you get referrals all the time.

Maybe it is having a form on the bottom of what your clients sign. Maybe it is something you have your staff ask as they are checking them out. Maybe it is something that you offer on your website with an incentive to encourage them to give you referrals. I have even run a contest where for a month the person who gave me the most referrals would get an iPod. That is when they first started becoming so popular. And I said they had to give me a minimum of five referrals to even be in the contest.

Take what you know people will want, offer them a chance to get it by helping you. I can’t say enough about how great it is to have business come to you this way. It is very effective and an absolute must to get more clients.

The fifth way to build your business is to get clear about who you are and what you offer. This really should be number one but I find people steer away from this because they think they are already doing this and 85% of the companies really aren’t clear enough. They are not distinguishing themselves from everyone else.

If there are ten people trying to sell me a new mortgage loan and they all say they have the best deals, how would I choose? I would just have to pick one.

You do not want your business to get chosen by luck of the draw. You have got to distinguish yourself from other people.

You have all heard about the USP. Some call it universal selling proposition, others call it unique selling point, it doesn’t matter but what does matter is that you have got to stand out from the crowd. You have to!

According to the Spa Finder Report, an industry trade journal, there were a mere 20 day spas nationwide in 1980. And now there are hundreds, maybe even thousands nationwide. And too often I hear their ads and they say ‘relax, refresh and renew’ ‘islands of serenity and pampering’ okay sounds good but so what. So does ever day spa ad out there. If you have an ad, a website, a business card and the person reads it and can say ‘so what’ it means that you have not distinguished yourself from the others. This is killing your business and you are losing clients.

So you need to take some time and really think about what is so different about you that distinguishes you from everyone else that is doing the same thing.

Think about Dominoes when they became the first pizza place to deliver, it put them way ahead of the competition. Or FedEx when they said next day delivery or it’s free. When you start doing something that no one else is doing, that is the thing that is going to attract clients like nothing else before. The best way to decide how you are going to do this is to think about your business and consider if you were buying from you what would be the coolest thing you would like to get along with what you are already getting. Is that something you can do or offer? Will this make you unique, if so incorporate it.

[Stay tuned next month for Part Two of this Article] Laura Johnson is a promotional marketing and life/success coach. She is co-author of the ebook "Marketing for the Totally Terrified". She has been heard on WBAP in Dallas on the eWomen network show and on the University of Masters for her networking and coaching skills. If you would like to get a free copy of the ebook or learn more about Laura Johnson, go to www.makeyourpromotionhappen.com. She has been motivating people since 1984!

Laura has been helping people promote themselves since 1984. She really believes in what she does and loves to help people create success! Laura believes that being aware and taking action are two skills that will drive your success. If you are a business owner and would like to take the Action survey, please go to Action Survey.