How to bring more leads into your business

Rhipe/Crayon offers coaching to our Managed Service Providers, as a value-added service to help them expand their business both from a technical and non-technical perspective. And as I’m one of these coaches, I often get asked, how do I bring in more leads to my business?

Here are some ideas that may help, not in any order of importance so pick the ones that suit you and look out for my 2nd article which will provide more ideas.

Referrals from your existing clients

Choose 3-5 friendly clients and be honest with them and tell them that you’re looking for more clients – they are business owners just like you, so they get it. Or, let them know that you have put a plan in place to expand your business and you’re keen to be introduced to businesses like theirs who may need help with IT and security.

Networking events & groups

As the audience is other business owners don’t go to networking events to talk about your business (or to eat copious amounts of food and to drink the cheap wine), focus on the purpose as you are there to ask people about themselves and their business.

You need to work the room so don’t be stuck with the same person/people that you met when you walked in. The goals are:

·????????Build multiple connections

·????????Build the start of a relationship with them – albeit in a short period of time. But try to establish a strong enough tie to be able to say, let’s catch up for coffee in the next couple of weeks

·????????The goal is to commercialise this into an opportunity in the future

Some examples of questions you can ask:

·????????What do you do?

·????????How long have you been in your business?

·????????This sounds amazing – and how is business going?

·????????What’s the worst thing that you’re going through at the moment?

·????????What’s the best thing you’re going through at the moment?

·????????What do you do to keep your information secure in your company? If the response is: I don’t worry about that, we’re only a small business, give them an example (or make one up) of a business (of similar size) that has been compromised and the effect it had – downtime, loss of IP, loss of information/data.

·????????I’m hearing that business owners are worried about losing their IP if they are hacked. Does this concern you?

Some examples of Networking events are: BNI, Business Chambers, Bx Networking etc

I have been a member of 3 BNI chapters over the years and it was a successful use of my time. And for MSP’s, where most businesses need a trusted advisor they can rely upon, this may be a great return on your time. Each chapter only has 1 business for each category of service (1 Accountant, 1 family lawyer, 1 financial planner, 1 MSP etc per chapter). My recommendation is to visit a few chapters to meet the members and see if you can work with them. The philosophy behind BNI is ‘givers gain’ so you need to be prepared to invest a few hours per week (consistently every week) to be a member. Also, your business needs to be able to scale as leads start coming in – you need to be able to service these at speed and provide the quality of service that you claim you will deliver, because your reputation within this network is on the line. Think of a BNI chapter as your sales team, you will be training them on what referrals suit your business model.

If you choose to attend networking events, having a business card is still the easiest way for people to share information. I know it sounds old fashioned, but this is still the main mechanism to share your details. One tip is to have your photo on the back of your business card. This will help people remember you, as people remember faces, not names.

Online Reviews

Most people want to read reviews about your business before they call or engage with you. Having reviews is important so that potential new customers can read what your clients think about you. And one of the quickest ways people do this is by searching for your business on whatever browser they use. Many people use Chrome, so having a Google Profile is critical and having a number of reviews (my suggestion is greater than 10) is what you need to aim for asap. But the more the merrier, and use a few platforms to showcase your reviews like LinkedIn, Facebook or Bing Places for Business

Workshops

Hosting a workshop is a great way to build your prospect list. This could be at the local Business Chamber or if you don’t have a meeting room at your office, ask a friendly client that has one if you could use theirs. Don’t try to sell anything at these workshops, treat it as an education session for the participants. If you’re interested in this, please reach out to me as rhipe/Crayon can help.????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

Seminars

Pick a vertical market and go where they meet e.g., there may be a dental or legal conference or seminar that you can attend as a guest. Or offer to be the guest speaker at this event.

*as mentioned, there are more ideas to come as the article was too long to publish in one go. Have a great day!