Many people’s quest involves running their own businesses. Whether your dream is a single person operation or a string of franchised shops, you are going to need clients. It’s their money that makes your dream a stand alone lifestyle. To be blunt, it’s hard to consider yourself truly successful at your dream occupation if you still have to wait tables in the evenings to survive. It’s just a fact of life. Getting enough clients is the difference between a full and part time dream. It’s the biggest hurdle that most quest seekers face.
I recently had a good conversation with Steve Willinger about locating clients. Steve is a business coach who specializes in marketing and helping people start businesses. One of his focuses is assisting technical professionals move from being employees to being self employed. We were discussing how one finds clients that need your services.
Steve started out by explaining that before you can start getting customers you need to figure out a few facts about your business. A common myth of new business owners is that the entire world is their client base. What happens is by searching for everyone you find no one. Everyone does not want your services. Not everybody can be sold on your product or service. You need to figure out who needs your service and sell to them. That makes it easier because they want what you are selling.
The first step to finding those people is to determine what service you really provide and who would be your perfect customer for that service. This is the self analyst part. You must decide what you are doing for money. Since you are the boss here, you only have to provide the services you like to do. Look at the perfect type of job for you. Decide what facets of your business are your specialty. You can have more than one but you do need to define them.
Once you have the list of things you want to specialize in you can decide who would need that service. Knowing who they are gives you an idea where they are. You can look there and find them. This allows you to maximize your advertising efforts as well.
This discussion with Steve covered several facets of this topic. I will continue it tomorrow. In the mean time you should check out Steve’s web site. It shows the areas that Steve is involved in and is a good resource for information on marketing small business.
See you tomorrow with part two.
Quest On….
Steve’s Web Site: http://www.amarketingguy.com
