5. Pick Up the Phone
Everyone relies on email so much that it’s RARE to have someone pick up the phone and call you. Call clients you’ve done business with. Follow up with prospects who haven’t said yes yet. Offer them a valuable tip that can help them grow their business. BONUS: Leave a voicemail if you don’t get them live. No one leaves voicemails anymore.
4. Get Some Face Time
Nothing beats getting to know someone in person. This created a dilemma for me. I like to meet new people, but I don’t like to meet people for coffee. Many of the coffee places here in NYC are noisy, crowded and sometimes dirty. Not the best place to get to know someone. So, I changed the dynamic. I created an initiative called “Meet Me on Monday” where we meet for a glass of wine or a club soda at a nice French Bistro that isn’t crowded early in the evening. It’s a much more relaxing way to get to know someone. PRO-TIP: You can always “meet” someone over Skype if they are in another state or even in another country. I recently did a discovery call via Skype with a nice young woman in Budapest, and I felt like I could get to know her, because I could see her and hear her.
3. Shout Out on Social Media
Give a shout-out to someone awesome that you’ve done business with on your Facebook page and tag them in the post, (assuming you think they’d be cool with that!) Who knows, maybe they will even return the favor.
2. Find Out Who Links Back to You!
Even if you have Google alerts set up for your name and your business, there MAY be mentions of you online that your Google alerts miss. Recently, I found an article titled: “7 Personal Branding Tips for Gen Xers in the Digital Age.” Guy Kawasaki is #1 on this list and I am #3! I gave a shout out to the author on Twitter and Facebook and included a link to his article to drive some traffic back to him. I followed him on Twitter and woke up this morning to find that he followed me back. Cool!
1. HAVE FUN!!
People like to do business with people they know, like and trust. We’ve all heard that a million times and it is TRUE. People LOVE to do business with people they know, like and trust and can relate to. If you have a fun brand, (which I hope you do!) why not write a humorous blog post that is about something other than business? Or create a post on social media about the unusual play you went to see last night. Business doesn’t have to be boring. How can you have fun with your business and encourage more people to get to know you and do business with you.
Write down 10 creative ideas right now. Share your best idea in the comments below.
Great article. Thanks for the good ideas.
Excellent, timely tips as we all head into a slow time of year. Thanks!