Yes my friend that is the right question to ask.

NOT:

How to do more effective-cold calling?

Should I start doing newsletters?

Where are the best networking events?

How do I hire the right sales people?

How can I make my sales people stay?

How to be effective at time management?

How to write good content?

How to grow my social media reach?

I could go on and on with all the questions that are all encompassed under the main question of my heading.

If you ask the right questions you get the best answers

They say if you promise in a blog post headline make sure to deliver.

The fastest and most cost effective way to get more new business is through your network, hence the rise of referral networks. It’s still who you know, not what you know, but now virtually as well as face to face. It is much easier to have 100 people do 1% for you, than you do 100% of the work.

If you have created something with a unique selling proposition then out there in the big blue yonder is someone who needs what you sell right now with the money sat on the desk, and they have the authority to give it away right now. But how do you find them?

Here’s how NOT to find business quickly:

Well the really long ball game is to cold call and try find the needle in the haystack method, the mud at the wall marketing. Science says it works because even a broken clock is correct twice a day, but most will give up at 11:50 am because cold calling is tedious and tough work and to find people willing to do it is exceedingly difficult. The cold calling aficionados tell us that given a decent database and some target marketing first then it is not so difficult but that is then called telemarketing and not cold calling. Even then you are looking at around 4 hours of calls just to get a breakthrough.

Networking is also long winded by making friendships and developing your network. Sure it is faster and more comfortable than cold calling, but you have to be a scholar of the law of reciprocation first and go to business networks with the mind set of helping others first. Now a desperate start up founder is going to wince at that one! “We need sales now!” This is far too long to make rapid headway, sure when you have an established business” they will tell you.

Regardless of where you are in business, you need to do networking to grow your network.

Social media is the most comfortable as you’re sitting at your home office, with no commute to work, in your pajamas with a hot mug of coffee and chatting to people online dead on 9 am; sounds great doesn’t it? Well that’s what the get rich quick schemes sell you on, your own business, no boss, no deadlines. Oh bliss, oh what nonsense!

Anyone who makes it online will tell you it is much harder than a job as it is long days in the beginning as you want to make lots of money while you’re still enthusiastic, and if you do not love what you do and deal well with the stress that comes with not having regular money then you will never do well.

You need months and month of regular blogging and writing press releases, sharing to social media and to then grow your social media via groups and pages and followers to have any chance of making it online, and every person who works online has developed a list, an email list, for newsletters and nurtures that list with regular dynamic, relatable, interesting, useful content each week. Hence why Digital Marketing managers earn good money.

Then there is the learning to stay ahead of the game. If you are a tradesmen then you learned your craft as an apprentice, and things technical rarely change; the periodic table and physics are quite set in stone. Digital marketing changes every month.

Don’t forget you need a budget to pay for ads as the free marketing that was effective 5 years ago is no longer effective. Back then if you had a Facebook page with say 1,000 likes, and you posted a really good informative tip or trick to help your audience, then 250-400 people would see your post on their Facebook walls. Now you are lucky to get 20 people see it. Why?

Well ..Facebook went public remember, and IPOs have shareholders and shareholders want profits, so the free was culled to almost zero, and now you have to pay to get anywhere near effective levels of visibility of your posts on social media

Have a month off and when you return you are in a conversation with some like-minded nerds you know and half a dozen phrases and new practices are totally alien to you. You then find yourself on many online seminars just to catch up on the ever evolving world of online marketing. There is a burgeoning market in Digital Marketing training.

This is what you should do if you need business quickly…

Ask your network to look out for you to see if they know someone with a need for your products or services, make it easy for your network to ask the question. Just like they teach you at Business Networking International (B.N.I. clubs) be specific with who you need, even as far as “I need to speak to the CEO of this particular company”. Someone in your close network will probably know someone who knows the CEO and will help you make a warm contact via their network, but if you don’t ask you won’t get!

Ask your clients to ask their network, offer an incentive like 20-30% off their next order if they introduce you to a colleague or associate or two who needs what you sell.

When I was a window salesman once you got your first few clients in a great mood and have already sold, done the paperwork and relaxed, we then asked our new clients to supply us with 5 names of friends and associates whom they would be happy to call and to introduce us to them directly. We seem to have lost this art of referrals, it is so profitable and provides you with an endless supply of potential clients.

leads4biz has created its own networking system with over 6,000 members (Business owners and or Sales /Marketing Managers) online right now. We offer a directory listing and marketing in return for the members to tell us what they are buying for their business B2B, and/or for themselves, B2C. We then create a list of buying requests on the website every day.

Make sure to have a look at the list of what our members are seeking and look in your category of business, we have the lead description, budget, area and images in some cases.

Warm qualified leads are pure profit and should be seized upon immediately.