Are you struggling to get more customers for your business? Do you have a wonderful service or product but find that customers aren't knocking your door down or ringing you to book an appointment? Anne Elizabeth Perez, also known as an action taker and strategist will help you ‘Get Your Word Out' and use the internet to get more customers and sales. if you are ready to take action and are prepared to do what it takes. As one of my mentors says ” do for a year what other's won't and live for ever like others can't” If you are looking for a no nonsense mentor who will help you ‘Get Your Message Out' then welcome to my site.
Right, let's get started. The first thing to do is download the focus guide on the right. Read it, take action on what it contains and email me if you have any questions.
In this post we are going to be looking at how to attract customers to your business. You may love your work as a (fill in the blank) but unless you become good at marketing and promoting your skills and your business you won’t have enough clients to continue. However you feel about selling learn to be comfortable about it. You have a skill that makes your customers feel special so let the world know about it.
First Steps
Before you decide how you are going to get clients for your business you
must understand your ‘target market’. Simply this means ‘who is more likely to
be your customer’. By knowing who is more likely to be your customer you can
save both time and money by directing your marketing at the right people.
Earlier we looked at the importance of finding the right customers; in other
words ‘your target market’.
If you haven’t done so already write down who is your customer. What type of work do you want to do? Who would make your ‘ideal client’? When you know who you want as your ideal client think about where you would find them. What do they read? Where do they shop? What websites would they visit? Where do they hang out in social media? Find out as much as possible about them. Once you know where to find your clients you can direct your marketing efforts where they will see it.
There are two main categories of marketing these days: Offline and online. Take a look at both of them then decide on which two or three ideas only that you want to start with and take massive action. Put them into practice as quickly as possible so you can see which of the initial action steps you take works best. If an idea doesn’t work for you or doesn’t work as well as you expected simply analyse how you could improve upon it or drop it and select another. Speed is important. Don’t keep doing the same thing over and over if it’s not working drop it and try something else!
I'm small business mentor and marketing strategist, Anne Elizabeth Perez and would love to connect with you. If you are new to the world of business ownership please check out my training on boost your visibility and discover how to increase the size of your audience
Having your own business is very exciting, although at the beginning a little daunting when you are getting everything set up. I always feel that some understanding of what it will take to become successful really helps when starting out. Owning your own successful business offers great rewards but you must be prepared and committed to the role.
Determining if you are ready to start your own business at the beginning of your journey is time well spent.
The first thing to do when you start out is to evaluate your strengths
and weaknesses as a potential owner and manager of a small business.
Are you able
to make decisions?
As the owner of a business you make the decisions. You don’t take orders
from anyone else and you decide how, when and what your business will look like
and what you will offer your clients.
It will be entirely up to you to decide on what type of business you want to have, how many hours you’re prepared to work and whether to employ others in the business or not.
You will also find the clients and offer them products and services, which you yourself decide upon. You make the decisions.
I, myself love the freedom of
making my own decisions, setting my own hours and working where and with whom I
choose. Is that something you want to do?
Business ownership can be exciting, but it's also a lot of work. In the
early days especially there is a lot to do to get your business up and running
and attracting clients. Are you up for the challenge?
Do you get
along well with other people?
When you run your own business you will meet and need to develop working relationships with many different types of people including customers, sales people, staff, bankers, lawyers, accountants, or consultants.
There will be times when you may have to deal with a demanding client,
an unreliable vendor, or a cranky receptionist if your business needs them. How
well do you think you would cope in these situations?
Do you plan
and organize well?
Research shows that poor planning is responsible for most business failures. Good organization of finances, inventory, schedules, and customer records can help you avoid many pitfalls.
Is your
ambition strong enough?
Running a business can wear you down emotionally. Some business owners burn out quickly from having to carry all the responsibility for the success of their business on their own shoulders. Strong motivation will help you survive slowdowns and periods of burnout.
The first few years of a new business can be hard on family life. It's
important for family members to know what to expect and for you to be able to
trust that they will support you during this time. There may also be financial
difficulties until the business become profitable, which could take a while.
I find that being aware of problems that may arise makes it easier to handle them when they come along. If you truly want to run your own business you can do it. Just keep going despite the obstacles that may get in your way.
There's nothing more rewarding than being in charge of your own life:
deciding when and where to work and when to take breaks and holidays, not
having to ask permission and deciding on who you work with. However you are
also in charge of your income: finding new clients, keeping them happy and
growing your business.
I'm small business mentor and marketing strategist, Anne Elizabeth Perez and would love to connect with you. If you are new to the world of business ownership please check out my training on boost your visibility and discover how to increase the size of your audience
Recently I've heard from others how confused they are about the whole process of promoting their message to others on the internet. There is so much information out there they don't know where to start or what is important.This set me thinking let's go back to basics and help with a step by step guide to marketing online.
Where to Start
Where to start! Many people start with social media. Social Media does play an important part in promoting your message to others, assessing opinions, the support out there, and the demand for your products and services. However, social media should not be where you stay. You need your own ‘platform' online. Your own ‘piece of real estate', as I like to call it, on the internet. Third party platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, You Tube, Pinterest, Instagram are all owned by other people who can at any time change their minds about how they will run them. Too many people have had their accounts shut down for something they have said or done. This can have devastating affects if they have been too reliant on them to ‘get their word out'.
Build a website
Where you should start is with your own website. Your ‘piece of real estate' that you control. You can decide what to write about and include on your own website without the danger of being shut down. Once you have your own website set up you can share your content such as blog posts, videos, audios, and more with social media platforms and offline to attract others to what you have to offer. When you meet with prospective clients online and offline you have a home online where you can send them to find out more about you. A place that you can set up how you like and not a design dictated by others.
Become Visible to Others
We shall be looking at how to set up your website in a later blog post but for now let's assume it is now up and running. The next step is becoming visible to others. There are so many websites out there the question now becomes how to become visible to others. How to attract people who may be interested in what you have to offer. This is when you have to decide who you want to attract. Who is your ‘target audience' as we marketers call it. Have you ever thought about who is your ideal prospect? It's time to take action and work this out. In order to be visible online these days you need to be clear on who you are trying to attract. Then you can write and produce content that is directed at them and promote your message to those wanting to hear what you have to say.
In an upcoming blog post I shall be looking at how to find your target audience, your ideal prospect. People who are more likely to want to hear what you have to say or buy the products and services you have to offer them. In the meantime why not think about how you want your website to look.
Until next time
Look after yourself
Anne
I'm small business mentor and marketing strategist, Anne Elizabeth Perez and would love to connect with you. If you are new to the world of business ownership please check out my training on boost your visibilityand discover how to increase the size of your audience
The internet has grown up. It's been more than 20 years since the first website was created by Tim Berners-Lee in 1991. There are now over a billion websites online!! The first site was text only and looked like this:
It can be seen at http://info.cern.ch/hypertext/WWW/TheProject.html. When it first came out the barebones website was designed to explain the World Wide Web to newcomers. It was considered amazing in those days. A website which looked like this today would not however get much attention.
Websites can be cold and uninviting unless you offer viewers treats and inspiring content. You have only a few seconds to attract people to stay. However, you can turn your website into a favourite stop on the internet by adding rich content that makes your site useful, interesting and fun to visit.
In some respects you can apply the human attraction characteristics to what makes attractive websites. The website should have a pleasing ―personality for example. It should be inviting and easy to interact with. You should be able to understand what it is saying.
It is frustrating to visit a website you know has good information and be unable to find it. It doesn‘t take long for people to abandon a site they can‘t manoeuvre through or around easily. Links should be well-placed and obvious. Did you know that the space a link occupies can affect your sales? Move a link from the bottom corner of a page to the top of the page (above the fold) where it‘s eye level and sales will rise.
Here are a few more tips to consider when creating your website.
Include high quality content
Keep instruction simple because viewers aren‘t going to read an instruction manual to learn how to click around the website
Make it easy for customers to find the important links like product listing or descriptions
Make sure the background and text colors mix well and that text is easily readable
Keep opt-in forms or subscriber boxes very basic
Writing should be grammatically correct and error free
Don‘t try to be cute because it annoys people who are just trying to find and buy what they need and want to get the job done as quickly as possible
Keep the website fairly simple and don‘t let it get too busy looking or too ―stuffed‖
Make sure all the links on the website work properly
If you want to “Get your word out” using a website make sure it is attractive and functional and place on the internet that visitors want to stop by.
I'm small business mentor and marketing strategist, Anne Elizabeth Perez and would love to connect with you. If you are new to the world of business ownership please check out my training on boost your visibilityand discover how to increase the size of your audience
We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. If you continue to use this site we will assume that you are happy with it.Ok
Are you struggling to get more customers for your business? Do you have a wonderful service or product but find that customers aren't knocking your door down or ringing you to book an appointment? Anne Elizabeth Perez, also known as an action taker and strategist will help you ‘Get Your Word Out' and use the internet to get more customers and sales. if you are ready to take action and are prepared to do what it takes. As one of my mentors says ” do for a year what other's won't and live for ever like others can't” If you are looking for a no nonsense mentor who will help you ‘Get Your Message Out' then welcome to my site. 
