How to Get More Business Even Now

Oct 26 2009

Posted by: Cheryl Clausen in sales marketing coaching, tags: how to get more business, prospecting for clients, sales marketing coaching

This is an interesting time we live in beyond a doubt. It seems like there’s just one crisis followed by yet another. The banking crisis, the housing crisis, H1N1, the health reform crisis…

Rahm Emanuel, Chief of Staff for the Obama administration, has even been quoted as saying you can’t let a good crisis to go waste. Turning away from politics and things beyond your control what, if anything, can you do to get more business when the business you had seems to be running the other way?

And the business you might of had seems to have dried up and blown away. One thing for certain. You can’t keep doing the same thing and expect different results. Seems like there’s nothing like a good crisis to change everything almost overnight.

Hmmm…

Seems like there’s nothing like a good crisis to change everything almost overnight!

AND that means you could change your future almost overnight too. It means you could get more business almost overnight if you just use the current circumstances to YOUR advantage.

Here are two ways for you to do that.

Change what you are selling
Find desperate buyers

Change what You are Selling

When I say, “Change what you are selling”. I am not suggesting you go out and find a new product or service to sell. I’m suggesting you change the way you position what you are already selling.

Focus on Desperate Buyers

Compare your past clients needs to the needs of your clients now:

What are they moving toward that they weren’t before?
What are they moving away from that wasn’t important before?
What have they lost that’s extremely important?
What do they need to get or get back?
What have they lost control over?
What difficult problem do they need solved that is causing heartache, time, money, or energy?
What’s negatively impacting their lifestyle or business?

The list of questions could go on, you get the idea. Now think about how your service could help with these new challenges that your ideal new clients are struggling with waiting for someone to show up and solve for them.

Then repackage how you present your service focused on what you already know the people who need your services are already looking to buy to help them with that.

Putting it Together to Get More Business

Let’s just take one of the above questions. What have people lost?

Confidence
Their job or business
Their home or other possessions
A sense of security
Their retirement plans and income

To mention just a few of the things people have recently lost. What do you do as a service provider to get more business and help your new clients at the same time? Here are some things you might think about…

An employment agency might focus temporary placements so more small businesses could get the help they need without committing to a payroll and all the expenses associated with a payroll. They might also help those unemployed workers they haven’t placed discover how they could start their own business. That way they would get those new business owners coming back to them for their employment needs.

A real estate agent might focus on real estate as a safe long-term investment for those investors who got burned in the recent stock market plunge. Now that the housing market is near an all time low and interest rates are also low investors can invest in a hard tangible asset that Wall Street can’t take away from them.

The life insurance business owner can similarly focus on selling an investment alternative that isn’t subject to the ups and downs of the stock market.

Not sure how what the people most likely to become your clients are desperate to buy? Start asking. Ask what they see as the biggest challenge facing people in their industry, age group, community, etc. Focus on the group they would put themselves in. Find out how difficult it is to overcome that challenge. Find out what happens if that challenge isn’t taken care of.

You are looking for difficult to solve challenges that have very negative consequences when they go unresolved.

Coach Cheryl

Do it Yourself

Do it with a Little Help

Do it with Guidance

This entry was posted on Monday, October 26th, 2009 at 6:00 am and is filed under sales marketing coaching. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.