By Evan Vitale
Earning your first client or customer is a major step in your business success. Obviously, you’re going to need clients and customers in order to thrive, but the first few that walk through your door or sign the contract are big confidence boosters that you made a good decision in starting your business.
Now, although you need to deliver on your promised products and services for that sale, there’s one thing you should never ever stop doing and that’s marketing and sales. Always be marketing. Always be looking for the next customer and the next sale even when you’re busy.
A friend of mind does it this way:
- Take care of yourself first. When he starts and ends the day, the first thing he does is a little bit of marketing for his own business. This includes Twitter, Facebook, etc.
- Write one blog post a week – more if you can. Carve out some time to write at least one, 300-word blog post about your industry or offer a tip or a piece of advice to prospects.
- Write thank you notes to anyone you met along the way.
- Attend at least one networking event per week. Mornings seem to be best for some because you can attend a breakfast/coffee networking event on your way to the office. Sometimes, it’s difficult to go to the office first and then break away to network.
- Stay in touch with prospects by sending them an update, a monthly newsletter, a postcard mailing, etc.
A handful of clients isn’t going to keep you busy, so you’ll have plenty of time to do marketing, networking and sales when you first open your doors. Even if you start to put in 12+ hour days, you should never stop marketing because you never know when you might (unfortunately) lose a client or your biggest customer.