you’re not done once you land a client.
by august j. aquila
price it right: how to value accounting services
most new business comes about because of personal marketing efforts. there is a process that your personal marketing efforts need to follow. in fact, the only way you will get different results is to change your current marketing process. let’s look at the four steps in the personal marketing process.
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first, you need to get known and develop a good reputation in the marketplace. there are many ways for you to do this. look around your community.
there are your neighborhood; your church, temple or mosque; the schools your children attend. think about your business community and professional organizations as well as social and civic organizations. there is even a political community in which you can become involved. how many of these organizations are you currently active in? how many do you contribute your talents to? getting clients first requires that people know who you are.
second, now that you are getting known, you need to move to the next stage of the process: developing relationships. this could be as simple as just being there to answer a question, providing counsel to one of your referral sources, calling a client to ask how he or she is doing, or introducing one of your clients to a potential client.
third, you need to ask for the business. this is the selling process. this stage begins when you identify a need for your prospect or client or when the prospect calls you with a need. think of the selling process as merely helping your prospect or client satisfy a need. your challenge is to accurately identify the need or needs, provide the service or product that best satisfies those needs, be able to respond to objections, and provide the client with sufficient value for the fees paid. when you ask for the business, you’ve made yourself a client.
fourth, keep your good clients for life. the first two stages in the process get you to the client. the third stage shows the client what you can do. the fourth stage continues to prove to the client that she did the right thing by hiring you. this last stage requires you to serve the client. aren’t we in a service business? therefore, shouldn’t we act as servants to our clients? we need to provide clients with timely services, give proactive advice and always have the client’s best interests at the root of everything we do.
that’s the process for developing a personal marketing plan. the implementation is now up to you.