In our previous blog posts and to be frank, most of the posts on this website, the focus is on how to grow your virtual professional business online. In this post we will look at how to get clients with offline networking.
While online networking is a wonderful tool and a prime benefit of living in the 21st century, let’s not discount the traditional method of how to get clients.
Online Networking or Offline Networking
Not all your inquiries or networking will arrive digitally and with online networking. Even if your business functions one hundred per cent online, you need to make like a girl guide and be prepared for offline networking chances too.
Meeting people face to face and giving an introduction to your services to them, might even result in more clients and sales for your virtual professional business than online tools.
Tools to Use for How to Get Clients
Join local professional associations for your area. Go to networking breakfasts (at least once a month), attend meetings and workshops. Attending women’s networking groups is a great way for how to get clients. Do a Google search for women’s groups in your area.
Carry content samples and multiple business cards or brochures with you at all times.
If your virtual business involves graphic art, for example, take a mini-portfolio or have your online portfolio bookmarked on your iPad. If your business is content-based, have an Author’s bio sheet bookmarked or slipped into your briefcase. Or carry a magazine featuring one of your articles, if you’ve been published offline too.
The important thing is to be able to not only tell people what you do, but show them too. This doesn’t mean throwing the kitchen sink at them – just one sample or simple document should do the trick. Samples are a prime tool for how to get clients.
Volunteer to hold a workshop – Perhaps even for one of those local associations you’ve joined. Then give the participants and the organizers handouts branded with your contact details and call to action.
Have a Six-Second Mission Statement ready for when people ask “what do you do”.
Note: This is not like the old Elevator Speech, which can often tend to seem “canned”, sound rehearsed, or provide more information than the questioner really wants to know. It should be shorter and simpler, describe exactly what you do and provide the questioner with a way to contact you in future.
(Example: “I code and write website pages for business owners who don’t have time. Here’s one of my business cards.”)
Then give them two. If they point out you gave them more than one, say: “Oh, that’s okay. Pass the other one on, if you know someone who might find it interesting.”
Make sure all your ducks are in a row; meaning, have everything ready – Templates, website, business cards, work samples, portfolios, forms and contact methods and information. Do that and your chances of landing those clients who contact you unexpectedly will automatically increase for your virtual professional business.
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