Dorothy Suter

I spoke with one of my business mentors yesterday, who reminded me how important it is to calculate and target the number of people you actually need to reach to get the number of clients you’re searching for.

Janice recommends that for every client, you neeed 10 prospects.  For every prospect you need to reach 10 “suspects.”  This is the sales funnel.  How can you reach 100 times the number of clients you need?  This is what you want to determine for yourself.

Let’s say you are targeting 30 new clients per month.  You want to reach 3,000 “suspects” – persons who you suspect belong to your target market.  Of those 3,000, you’re targeting that 300 of them will actually come to your website or blog to take advantage of your offer and leave you their contact information.  Of those 300, you are counting on 10 percent, or 30 of them, to become your new customer. 

Use these simple guidelines if you are targeting how many people you need to reach, and how many you need to successfully register on your contact list to achieve the number of clients you seek.

Need to get more clients?  Here are three no-cost or low-cost ways to get more clients that you can implement right away.

1. Start Networking
If you aren’t already out there networking, in-person networking is the fastest way to get off the ground. Meeting in person gives the best relationships. Look out for and choose the people you really fit with.  Try to meet some of the speakers, if there are any, at the event.  

Make a point to attend one big event at least three times a year.  Ideally, you’ll attend those events that cost more, because you will find higher quality people.  Network with your peers and with your target market alike.  If you have properly targeted and researched you “ideal client,” you should know where you are likely to find them.  If not, interview or survey your current customers to find out. 

If you have already been networking, go to some circles outside your regular circles.  Check MeetUp.com for groups of interest in your area.

However, if you find someone interesting at your events, don’t make a deal on site.  Follow up and make the deals after.  Get to know each other a little better before committing to anything.  That way you’ll avoid getting cornered in a bad deal.

2. Leverage Your Website 
Simple changes to your website can turn more visitors into buyers, or encourage more visitors to join your list.  Use interactive media – video or audio.  Get peoples’ attention.  Give a free report, or create a newsletter. There’s always something more you can do with your website.  Measure the number of visitors, if you’re not doing that already. 

Are you leading them to the next step in a sales process?  Where can you be inviting people?  Invite people to continue with you.  Have an objective for each page.  Do you want people to buy?  Do you want them to leave contact information?  Do you want them to read the next page?  Do you want them to email you?  What are you inviting them to do?

Ultimately, you want your website to be easy to navigate and to find relevant information, and you want a way to gather contact information for the people who visit there.

3. Use Social Media
The three big ones are Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.  There is no cost, and you can make connections and money when you establish a regular routine.  You can do Twitter in 10 minutes a day.  It doesn’t take much longer to update Facebook, or add a connection or two on LinkedIn. 

Although you cannot sell directly from social media, you can use Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn as relationship-building tools and drive people back to your website to give them additional value.   Send out questions and get conversations going.  Ask opinions and advice.  It’s instant and easy to have relationships.  You can do searches to find target markets of people most likely to do business with you.

There is still a lot for me to learn about WordPress. I played around some this past weekend but still haven’t learned everything I want to be able to do in “tweaking” templates and themes. I guess for now I stick with the free themes and/or call a professional as needed.

I followed “WordPress for Dummies” to get the blog posts to show up under a page link. I like that! And I can now change from theme to theme as the mood strikes me. And see how easy it is to insert a picture in a post? Lovely!

Also, I did get my other blog mapped correctly. You can see that blog at http://www.dorothysuteronline.com. And if you’re so inclined, you can see my ranting and raving about romantic comedies at the movies on http://www.onlinefilmscripts.com.

I’ve spent the past few days discovering the insights of “WordPress for Dummies” by Lisa Sabin-Wilson. I’ve tried the “For Dummies” series before, but this is perhaps the most use I’ve gotten out of one of these books. It’s fairly easy to follow along, and blessedly similar enough to how my WordPress works (I’m now on the next version), that I can follow right along step by step.

This book should allow me a lot more flexibility in what I can do for myself and clients and what I MUST hire a web designer for. I’ve still got some chapters to go before I master blog posts vs. Pages (and which one shows up on my front page), but I’ve already added themes, links, categories, tags and a profile.

I had the best time at our New Haven County Women in Business Meet Up this past Saturday.  I was able to present a couple topics in marketing strategies – specifically on defining your target marketing and preparing the “30-second sound bite.”   We will be continuing the topic at one of our future Meet Ups, and I am following up with some of our members on making additional presentations with their other groups and networks. 

That’s the best part of this business — when you get to see someone’s eyes light up with a big “aha!”

Want to explode your internet presence, grow your brand, get more clients and make more money without spending all your time and budget becoming a marketing expert?  I can help.  Whether you’ve been in business 20 years or 20 minutes, I am your source for everything you need to meet your marketing objectives.  When you’re in business alone, you want to do what you do best – serve your clients, patients and customers. 

Let the world know that you are available!  I will show you how to double or triple your client base within months.  You don’t have to become a marketing expert to get the results you’re looking for.  I’ve done that part for you…