I’m what you call old school when it comes to sales. I think there is nothing better than a face-to-face meeting with a prospect. When sitting down with someone, you have all your persuasive tools at your disposal—your voice, your body language, your active listening skills—those are the big guns.
But face-to-face sales takes a lot of time: driving time, meeting with folks and following up. Worse yet, people don’t want to meet face-to-face like they used to. Many of my prospects prefer to get their own information and make up their own minds.
These realities have forced me to get a little creative and look for some other ways to “get in front of” my prospects. I may not be face-to-face, but these are great alternatives that can eventually get you the face-to-face time you want.
None of these options put pressure on people to buy; instead they compel people to learn more about you on their own time, which may make them more inclined to buy.
Get Creative
- Blog. Blog posts are nice and short, and because of this they allow you to make one very relevant point and make it well. Once you get the hang of writing blog posts, they are easy to knock out and in no time you will produce a ton of content that your prospects can read and know that your worth your salt.
- Guest blogs. Once you get into the groove of blogging, start scouting out other people’s blogs and see if you can post on their blog. This is a great way to get in front of other people’s network of contacts and drive traffic to your own site.
- Video. The next best thing to face-to-face interaction is video. It allows you to show your personality and passion! When you talk about your area of expertise, which is your business, you likely exude confidence whether you realize it or not. I had a great conversation with John Jantsch from Duct Tape Marketing about this very subject—and you guessed it—our conversation is on video.
- Speaking engagements. Speaking engagements are one step short of that face-to-face sales opportunity you are looking for. Instead of selling yourself to just one person, you’ve got a whole room. Score!
- Ebooks. Nothing demonstrates expertise like long-form writing. Especially if you are in a service business, you surely have a perspective to share. An ebook doesn’t have to be long—10-20 pages—and it’s easy to make it look presentable enough to share. If you write a great ebook it shows you know your stuff.
All of these tactics create content that you can share through your social media channels (because you use social media, don’t you?). Social media is a great way to keep your contacts updated, keep you top of mind and share your content with new faces.
I know you didn’t start your business to become a content developer, and you may be wondering what you’re going to write about or speak about. Just think about what you say on a daily basis. What questions do people ask you over and over again? What points do you constantly try to drive home to your clients? Once you become aware
of it, you’ll start thinking, “Hey, that’s a blog post right there!”
And one bonus tip before I leave you—content takes a lot of work to create, so never use your content just once—always recycle your content!
Brad Farris is a Small Business Advisor at Anchor Advisors in Chicago. He also shares tools for small businesses at EnMast.com, a community for small business owners. Connect with Brad on Google+.
