Presentations and Marketing Your Business
Deciding to develop a business in sales poses a unique dilemma. How to attract clients to your door? Passive advertising like print, Internet websites, and signs are always good. Cold calling by telephone and lists of qualified candidates can yield results if you are diligent. There is always the network. You can interact with friends, family, and strangers. One area often overlooked is public speaking and public seminars
The biggest concern is usually the fear of public speaking. Toastmasters (www.toastmasters.org) can eliminate that fear. They have meetings throughout your local area, meeting early morning, midday, evenings, and weekends. Other resources to learn to speak publicly are adult education courses, colleges, and private speaking coaches.
Used as a marketing strategy, presentations can give you an instant data pool of your pure market. Using this strategy can yield 15 to 30 new prospects per presentation. Many who use this strategy choose to present once every 30 days. I know speakers who add 30 to 50 new clients per year using presentations as a marketing tool.
So, how do you get started? Two things: one, be clear on who is your target market; second, decide where your target market is located.
Becoming clear on your target market is often difficult. First, we try to help everyone. Second, we go off to attract people who are outside our target market. MAKE THIS SIMPLE by asking this question, “Who do you attract naturally?” For those of you who have been in business for a year or more, look at your top two or three existing client markets. Those are the markets where you have the most clients. For me, after 18 months, I found professionals in commercial insurance Florida, business educators, and real estate professionals as my top three. Identify them by demographics; age, location, profession, family, children, size, weight or whatever is pertinent. For those of you who are new to business the question to ask is, “With whom do you want to work?” Again, look at demographics.
When you identify your target market it becomes easy to identify where your target market hangs out. Many of my clients target the seminar market. Let us use Senior Citizens as an example. As seniors, many live in areas dedicated to seniors. A great example of where and how to market are Senior Centers using presentations as your strategy. The best way to be introduced to the seniors at a Senior Center is through someone you already know. It is also important to know that the center desires seminars for their members. Have that person make the call and personally make the connection for you. Senior Centers as well as local service organizations, are always looking for speakers. Ask the people you know in service organizations for the opportunity to meet the person who sets up the presentation.
Another method to get that speaking assignment is to call the people you know and ask them for what you need now. That is to say, if you want to speak to the senior market, ask them who they know that they could introduce you to who fit that description. Ask enough people you know for what you want now will get you what you need.
If you choose to adopt a presentation marketing strategy, you will find an opportunity to quickly increase your referral base. Your new referral base added to your existing will be one more tool to get you more business.
Gerry Rose runs INTEGRITY Networking Solutions in Oceanside, CA. He works with people in business who want to attract the right prospects and generate more referrals. More than 10,000 businesses have been presented the INTEGRITY Networking Solutions system in San Diego, Riverside, and Orange Counties.
Gerry’s stimulating presentation Unlimited Prospects, Unlimited Referrals is ideally suited for small business owners, home-based businesses, and independent professionals who want clearer direction and want to attract more prospects, develop dynamic systems, and strengthen their companies’ accountability. Gerry does one on one consulting, conducts a range of keynote speeches from thirty minutes to full-day education workshops.
His book series, Unlimited Prospects, Unlimited Referrals, are available on the website, www.integritysd.com.
Gerry has more than 20 years’ experience directing business owners how to grow their businesses. He is a networking dynamo. Those who know him will assure you that he does a great job of bringing people together—which is why he started INTEGRITY.
Involved with networking organizations since 1984, Gerry is a Distinguished Toastmaster, a member of Toastmaster International, and has chaired numerous chambers of commerce and non-profit organizations.
Are you truly committed to attracting the right prospects and generate more referrals? If so then contact INTEGRITY Networking Solutions for availability and information. You can contact Gerry by mail at 1610 Quiet Hills Drive, Oceanside, CA 92056. Direct dial (760) 439-4623; e-mail to gerry@integritysd.com. For more information, go to www.integritysd.com
