Prospecting: 10 Proven Ways to Build Your Client Base

Prospecting: 10 Proven Ways to Build Your Client Base A best-selling author offers economical but effective steps for professional and financial service providers to carve out a competitive advantage in attracting new clients.

With competition ramping up in the financial services and professional services markets, prospecting has become increasingly challenging. In his new online minibook, 16 Ways to Land More Clients, best-selling author Gene Walden offers a comprehensive list of some of the most economical yet effective steps you can take to build your prospect list and your client base.

Here are 10 of the most important actions you can take to build a better prospect base and close more clients: (To read the full version of “16 Ways to Land More Clients,” go to: http://investmentwritingservices.com/16-ways-to-land-more-clients/ ) 1. Start with a better website All roads lead to your website. It’s the first place people go to learn about you and your business. Whether they’ve met you, seen you, heard of you, or read about you, if people want to find out more about you, they’re going to go online to check you out. It may start with Google or Facebook or LinkedIn, but ultimately, they’re going to land at your website. That’s your first, best, and probably last opportunity to impress them. Competition is fierce in your profession, and competitive advantages are few and far between. If you really do want to take advantage of a rare marketing edge over the competition, you need to go the extra mile to create a web site that is different, distinctive, professional and compelling.

2. Take a professional to breakfast Try to hook up with professionals in other specialties to build strategic alliances. If you’re a financial advisor, you should try to form alliances with accountants, attorneys, mortgage brokers, architects, and other professional service providers.

The relationship can work both ways, you may refer some of your clients to them for their specific services and they may refer some to you for yours.

3. Decide on an expertise What do you most enjoy doing? What gets you out of bed in the morning? What area do you believe is the most promising for the future of your business? Once you figure that out, make it your specialty, and begin positioning yourself as an expert in that specialty.

4. Volunteer to speak Associations, trade groups, business groups, community centers, places of worship, senior centers, libraries and other organizations are constantly looking for speakers.

If you can do a good job of enlightening individuals on important areas of their finances or their personal or professional life, you’ll find plenty of opportunities to speak.

5. Have a Social Media Presence and SEO Presence Cyber space is full of possibilities. Some people soak it all in, others stay a safe distance away. You may choose not to tweet your every insight and misadventure to your universe of followers, but, from a business point of view, you probably should have a presence in the social media realm, and you definitely need a presence in the search engines. For all practical purposes, the yellow pages are dead—consumers find their service providers on Google and the other search engines in today’s market.

6. Host Unique, Enjoyable Events Everything you’ve done to this point leads to Event Marketing. It is the cherry on top, the medium that brings everything and everyone together. But don’t think of an event as just a banquet where you stand up and thank everyone. Make it fun. Give people a reason to want to come. Meet at a winery, a bakery, a brewery, a flower garden, a museum, or a historic mansion. Bring a musician or a magician or a comedian or a speaker on a topic that may have nothing to do with your business. Or invite them to golf lessons or a pool tournament or a dinner aboard a boat.

7. Do Your Own Newsletter If events are the medium that brings your marketing campaign together, your newsletter is the glue that keeps it together. It plays into almost everything you do.

It gives you a tool to stay in touch with your existing clients and prospects and a marketing vehicle to attract new prospects. You can offer it to everyone who visits your website, all of your leads, everyone you take to breakfast or meet through networking meetings, and everyone who attends your classes, your speeches and your special events.

8. Write articles on your specialty If you want to be recognized as a specialist in your area of expertise, one of the first things you should do is to start writing articles on the subject. Post them at your website and send them out with your newsletter. You might also send them to the local media to see if they have any interest in following up by interviewing you for a story on the subject.

9. Write a book—and then promote it While there’s no question publishing a book can have many benefits, do you really have time to write one? Writing a quality book is a major undertaking. Even with the help of a ghostwriter, you can plan on spending most of your spare time for the next six to 18 months getting your book written and published—and that’s just the beginning. But if a book burns within you, writing and publishing it can certainly give you a competitive advantage in your field.

10. Automate Your Follow-up.

Superior follow-up is your final competitive advantage. At this stage, in fact, it’s the only competitive advantage you have left. That’s why you’ve assembled a battery of follow-up tools—newsletters, articles, social media, special events—to systematize your follow-up process. Add to that a calendar of birthdays, anniversaries and holidays, and your follow-up database will be complete.

(Read full mini-e-book, by searching “16 Ways to Land More Clients,” or go to: http://investmentwritingservices.com/16-ways-to-land-more-clients/ ) Author Gene Walden has written more than a dozen best-selling business books and hundreds of published articles on business and finance. He is the founder of InvestmentWritingServices.com., which specializes in helping financial and professional services firms with compelling web copy, newsletters, press releases, books, and ghost writing.

Contact: Gene Walden Investment Writing Services.com Minneapolis, MN 952-201-9362 gwalden100@comcast.net http://investmentwritingservices.com