{"id":16352,"date":"2015-09-02T22:00:40","date_gmt":"2015-09-03T02:00:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.wework.com\/creator\/?p=16352"},"modified":"2020-04-03T18:06:51","modified_gmt":"2020-04-03T22:06:51","slug":"3-ways-your-small-business-can-rack-up-big-clients","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wework.com\/ideas\/professional-development\/3-ways-your-small-business-can-rack-up-big-clients","title":{"rendered":"Three ways your small business can rack up big clients"},"content":{"rendered":"

Plain and simple: you want to know how to get more clients for your service business. This is understandable\u2014a service-based business can be more complex to market than one selling consumer products, since you don\u2019t have anything to show potential clients. And in this economy, people like to spend cash on stuff they can see.<\/p>\n

Of course, it doesn\u2019t help if you\u2019re working from a home office, rather than a fancy corner office in a high-rise. Or that you have no connections to decision-makers who can write those large checks, and you have zero potential leads. A marketing budget? Yeah, right.<\/p>\n

So what do you do with your service-oriented business, whether it\u2019s in digital marketing, business consulting, or freelance gigs? You try researching online. You read book after book, article after article, and if you are like me, you are no closer to getting clients than when you started. I got tired of reading fluff: those articles that think they\u2019re telling you how to get customers, but in return are telling you just enough so you will call them and pay for consultations.<\/p>\n

\u200bI was working from my home office on Virgo Girl Media<\/a>, and things were not going as well as I hoped. I had a small team of freelancers on a monthly retainer, and I knew failure was not an option. I had to make some quick decisions if we were going to be successful. It was time to get creative and quit playing around.<\/p>\n

Here are a few tactics that worked for me:<\/p>\n

\u200b1.\u00a0Start small.<\/strong> Reach out to companies in your neighborhood. Send them an email that may go unnoticed, and then follow up with an in-person visit. Be sure to have a goodie bag (food preferred) with your pitch materials. Who turns down free food, especially if it\u2019s cupcakes? Be prepared to be honest, friendly, and comfortable. You want to have a neighborly politeness about you that says you\u2019re new to the area (business-wise) and want to make friends. Even if they don\u2019t sign on with you, that doesn\u2019t mean they won\u2019t in the near future, or that they won\u2019t tell their friends and co-workers about you. Before you leave, get their email address and send them your monthly newsletter and notices about special offers. And remember: nothing spreads faster than word of mouth when it comes to sharing what you\u2019ve already brought to the table: \u201cOh hey, this person came into the office today with cupcakes. Too sweet!\u201d \u201cReally? What were they selling?\u201d And this leads to a conversation about your business.<\/p>\n

2. Freelance your talent.<\/strong> A great way of getting closer to big-box companies is through partnerships with other agencies. For example, one service Virgo Girl Media offers is content writing for social media. While I know our content is awesome, a large corporation doesn\u2019t know that, and at the beginning, we didn\u2019t have any big names to refer us. Thinking outside of the box, I pitched our services to small- and medium-sized agencies that offered social media marketing. Only this time, instead of pitching us as a company, I pitched us as a freelancer. I simply said, \u201cHey, I am from Virgo Girl Media and I would love to be a content writer for your company.\u201d Anyone who has worked in advertising knows that 80 percent of the creative staff is made up of freelancers. Case in point: whatever clients you work for at that big agency (which puts dollars in your pocket or your company\u2019s account, by the way) translates into projects added to your r\u00e9sum\u00e9 or your company\u2019s.<\/p>\n

3. Have clients come to you<\/strong>. Now this one is a little tricky and can be time-consuming, but it\u2019s worth a try. Create an online marketing campaign around your \u201cdream clients.\u201d Let\u2019s say you want to attract restaurant owners for your business. How do you get not one, but tons<\/em> of them to notice you? Create a trend where they have no choice but to see you. During restaurant week, state on your blog that you are looking for restaurants to visit so you can write a review on your blog, tweet about the experience, share, even pin\u2014put it out there as much as you can and encourage restaurants to sign up. Everyone loves press\u2014restaurants in particular. Using popular hashtags surrounding restaurant week, custom hashtags, and tagging different restaurants to sign up is a win-win. Send restaurant owners to your website to sign up, and while they are there, naturally they\u2019re going to look around. You might not be able to visit all of the companies that sign up, but they will check out your website and see what you do. And hey, you can guess what happens next, right?<\/p>\n

Photo credit: Lauren Kallen<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Plain and simple: you want to know how to get more clients for your service business. This is understandable\u2014a service-based business can be more complex to market than one selling consumer products, since you don\u2019t have anything to show potential clients. And in this economy, people like to spend cash on stuff they can see. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1321,"featured_media":16369,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[43902],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16352","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-professional-development"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nThree ways your small business can rack up big clients<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"So you want to know how to get more clients for your service-based business? 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