You may be familiar with the phrase, “throw enough against a wall and something is bound to stick.” That might be true, but as you market your business (which is really just sharing solutions with people who are already looking for them) wouldn’t you rather know what is going to stick before you start? This trial and error method will eventually become exhausting. You’ll waste a lot of time and energy and end up with one ugly and messy “wall” in your business.

When it comes to increasing your profits, you want to focus your attention on the activities that will get you the best results in the shortest amount time possible. The only way you’ll know which strategies work the best is if you track where your clients are coming from. (If you would like a FREE copy of our client tracking tool, click here NOW.) By tracking your efforts and completing a quick and easy analysis you will see clearly: Read more about A Simple Analysis That Defeats Marketing Paralysis – Part 2 of 3

Networking For Profits (Even If You Hate Networking) – SSM Take 10 Episode #7 [ 13:42 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (362)

Perhaps you love networking. Or not. Either way, it's a simple and highly effective way to create more profits in your business. Listen in as my friend Devora Zack, author of "Networking for People Who Hate Networking" and a veteran consultant shares her best networking tips. (She's been in business for 15 years and is 100% referral based!) Click on the play button above to listen in.

Take Away Tips:     MORE

Simply click on the picture to watch my video tips for you:

Take Action Notes:

• To become known as the "go to" person for your ideal prospects, you have to show up EVERYWHERE.
• Networking is a big part of creating massive visibility. But networking is NOT about selling yourself or going to chamber mixers.
• Make networking fun by attending the events where your target market hangs out (such as a home & garden show, a car show, food and wine events - think outside the box).
• Be friendly, be approachable and relax!
• Get involved in the organizations gathering your people. Volunteer to be a greeter. Join a committee. Help plan an event.
• Another way to create visibility and credibility is to offer to contribute content. You can write an article for a newsletter or blog. Offer to help manage their social media presence. Whatever you can do to contribute (with attribution to your site of course)!
• Look for speaking opportunities. You can offer to do a 5 minute presentation, a teleseminar or a webinar. You could even introduce a keynote speaker or participate on a panel.
• Whatever you do, make sure you set aside time to follow up with ALL new contacts to deepen new relationships and learn more about the people you've met. Remember, your fortune is in the follow up! That's where the magic happens and you turn connections into clients.

Doesn’t it feel great to pass along the word about your favorite restaurant or tell someone about a terrific book you can read? You can make it easy for your clients and colleagues to do the same for your services. When you do great work for your clients, they are just as excited to tell others about you.

Creating a referral based business, where you’re consistently getting leads from your current clients, has multiple benefits. It helps cut down your marketing time and costs, it gives you more opportunities to provide great service and can help you grow your network exponentially.

Here are six PROVEN steps to use to create the type of business that people love to rave about! Read more about Six Steps to Creating a Referral-Based Business

Service professionals have to be proactive about finding and acquiring new clients. The marketplace continues to enable normal people like you and me to earn a living AND gives others the opportunity to get the services that they need. Why is that? It is because we can easily access the people who need the solutions that we offer to solve their problems.

I have found various forms of networking to be highly successful strategies to help grow a business [i.e. enroll new clients]. If you want to see the best results with your service business, leverage the following opportunities:     MORE

One of the ways that I quickly developed a base of ideal clients was by attending live events that cater to my target market. Over the years I have consistently attended workshops, events and seminars that attracted several hundred solo service professionals who were looking for tips and strategies to grow their business.

Why am I telling you this?  Because attending has been a MAJOR contributing factor in growing my business to its current level.  Did it cost me money to attend this?  YES!  (The registration fees have ranged from a few hundred to a few thousand dollars!)  Plus, I paid my own travel expenses AND took off time from my business.  But was it worth it?  ABSOLUTELY!  I’ve gotten at least one new client from every live event I’ve ever attended. Every single one.      MORE

Social media is becoming more and more of an essential tool for businesses of all sizes. But unfortunately, due to the newness of the medium and a lot of accompanying misleading hype, many businesses are led astray. Either due to their own misguided social media attempts or using bad advice from inexperienced “social media experts”, businesses are making mistakes left and right. Read more about Social Media Mistakes You Should Avoid

One of the best ways to get your ideal clients interested in your solutions is very simple - talk to them about how you can solve their problems. You may already be telling people you know about what you do, but there is a lot more to talking to your target market than that. There are networking opportunities all around you, you just have to learn how to take advantage of them.

To really make a difference for your business, there are a few steps to follow to make the most of networking opportunities. Here are three ways to make sure that your networking time is well spent: MORE

Let's face it. Not everyone loves networking. For some the very thought makes them queasy.

Yet, inherently, most service professionals know that effective networking is often the fastest path to generating more cash for their business.  So if you are on of those who would rather do yourself bodily harm then attend a networking event, what are you supposed to do? Read more about Networking Tips for Introverts - 6 Easy Steps

Whether you've been in business for one month or ten years, there are basic marketing strategies that ALWAYS work, but that are easy to overlook. As you look to meet your goals of generating a certain amount of revenue, working with a certain number of clients, or breaking into a certain market, you want to be strategic with your marketing efforts, but also keep your campaigns as simple as possible.

The key to doing this is focusing on developing relationships. As you know, people do business with professionals that they know, like and trust. So no matter what type of business you're in, developing and maintaining strong relationships is key to having a successful business. MORE