PPB December 2017

1. Know your ideal clients well. Find out who your clients are, what their jobs are like, what they care about and what they need to do to succeed. Gain deeper insights by using surveys and interviews. These tools will give you the insight you need to make your interactions with clients relevant and meaningful. 2. Know what your ideal clients value about working with you. Why do your clients choose to work with you? Chances are, your clients value your knowledge and guidance through the buying process and the product ideas and creative use of potential products that you recommend. By knowing what they care about and responding accordingly, you’ll create a relationship in which your client is confident that part of their job is taken care of. 3. Target those clients where you deliver the most value. Focus on the client types where you’ve had the most success with the least amount of effort. Walk away from the rest. 4. Go the extra mile. Streamline your processes so you deliver a consistent experience that sets you apart from the rest of your client’s vendors. Make it easy for your clients to do business with you. Build a culture of continuous improvement to help your team grow strong. 5. Become their trusted partner . Ask yourself, what else is there? Consider that just like every other business, your clients’ businesses are also evolving. By becoming more involved at a higher level, you will uncover opportunities to add both value to your clients and sales to your portfolio. 6. Market your business online. Online giants invest in marketing and advertising. Just like any other business on earth, you need to do the same. No one will find you when they are looking if you are not there. Set a reasonable budget to market your business online so you have a presence where your ideal clients are hanging out. There are many great, potential clients looking for providers just like you. Your challenge is to be found by them. This won’t happen by chance. Make it a point to be where they are spending time online. Be proactive in building your business culture, online presence and operating procedures. The good news is very few distributors are doing it. Gloria Lafont is a small business marketing consultant with 30 years of experience in branding and direct response, and an early adopter of online marketing. She is the president of Action Marketing Co. in Plantation, Florida, an agency that offers branding and promotional merchandise to select organizations, as well as comprehensive marketing services to small businesses. As a small business, you can, without question, provide amuch higher level of personalized service than mega online sources. Studies back this up. | DECEMBER 2017 | 45 GROW

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