I am bursting with pride about my new book Gentle Marketing: How To Gently Attract Loads of New Customers! due out on my birthday in May! Here’s an excerpt that I hope will whet your appetite…
As a small business marketing coach, I say you should get married to get more clients.
No, I’m not suggesting you actually go out and get married to another human being to get more clients! I’m only suggesting marriage to another business. And only temporarily. What the heck am I talking about, you ask?
We live in the age of collaboration. All around us, silos are becoming extinct and joint ventures have emerged as the new marketing tool to fill our practices.
For most of us, it’s still a new experience to marry another business—whether for the duration of a co-promotion, an event or even a longer term joint venture project.
Marrying another business temporarily is a very Gentle way to get clients.
Your temporary marriage gives you potential custody of their children (their clients), raises your profile so you can gain potential new kids (again-clients) of your own and through your collaboration, makes your business more attractive to a whole new population of people whose radar you never even blipped on (I don’t know where to go with the kids analogy on this one).
A great example of a recent marriage I made was when a professional chef who catered to small businesses and I did a workshop together. She did the food demo and I did the marketing training. We both used our newsletters to promote the event to our databases. As a result of our marriage, we both got clients out of the workshop: I got coaching clients; she got other small business workshops to cook and serve at.
Top Reasons To Marry:
Gain More Ravers
If you have similar clients but don’t compete directly for the same business, then you can mine each other’s existing database and current client list to see if there’s a match. Why shouldn’t you offer your clients a tried and tested resource that complements what they hired you for?
2 Heads Are Better Than Yours
Even if you’re God’s gift to your industry, when it comes to getting new clients, a collaborative effort is bound to yield more creativity and market relevance.
When I joint ventured on a proposal to a new client, we corrected each other’s mistakes and came up with really creative new solutions to make our offering even better than it would’ve been had we worked in isolation.
Your Bra Isn’t Supporting You Enough
When you only have yourself and your bra to depend on, your business can feel very isolating. I sit at my desk for a full 8 hours in my own home until I go to pick up my 3-year-old and even then the conversation isn’t scintillating at its best. If you’re in the same boat, marrying another business temporarily allows you the support and interaction with another person who is exactly like you.
In Cheapness and In Health
When you marry another business temporarily, economies of scale can really work to a small business’ advantage. Lump your powers to buy together and see how you can enhance your discounts and buying prowess.
So go ahead and buy that figurative ring and bend down on your knee to another business and see your profits soar!
Need more chicken soup for your biz? Follow me on Twitter, friend me on Facebook or connect with me on LinkedIn –and let’s talk!
Related articles
- 6 Ways to Increase Your Customers (powerhomebiz.com)
- 7 Essential Elements to Small Business Growth (ducttapemarketing.com)
There is definately a lot to find out about this issue.
I like all the points you have made.
Thanks Quentin
First off I would like to say awesome blog! I had a quick question which I’d like to ask if you do not mind. I was curious to find out how you center yourself and clear your head before writing. I’ve had a hard time clearing my mind in getting my
ideas out. I do enjoy writing however it just seems like the first 10 to 15 minutes are lost just trying to
figure out how to begin. Any recommendations or tips?
Thanks!
Hi Lara, all day I write down titles of blog about stuff I get ticked off or sad about (as it relates to my target audience and what i help them with) and then when I’m ready to write, the title triggers the content. Does that help? Thanks for kind words by the way!
C
wonderful publish, very informative. I wonder why the opposite experts of this sector
don’t notice this. You must proceed your writing. I’m sure, you have a
great readers’ base already!
Thanks for the kind words Valerie!
My family members every time say that I am killing my time here at web, but I know I am getting experience everyday by reading such fastidious posts.
Glad you liked it!
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Hello there, I think your blog might be having web browser
compatibility issues. When I take a look at your blog in Safari,
it looks fine however, when opening in Internet Explorer, it has
some overlapping issues. I just wanted to give you a quick heads up!
Besides that, excellent site!
Thanks Marilynn, good to know you like the site! I’ll tell my VA, she’s the whiz in this relationship.
Nice blog here! Also your website loads up fast! What web host are you using?
Can I get your affiliate link to your host? I wish my site
loaded up as fast as yours lol
Thanks for the compliments on my loading speed of all things. My VA takes care of everything but all I know is that we use wordpress.com and GoDaddy. I don’t have an affiliate link to them but maybe I should, ha! Take care
I do not comment, but after browsing a few of the comments on Get
Married To Get More Clients | Coachtactics. I actually do have a couple of questions for you if you
don’t mind. Could it be just me or does it look like like a few of these comments come across like they are coming from brain dead individuals? 😛 And, if you are posting on additional sites, I’d like to follow you.
Could you post a list of the complete urls of your public pages like your
twitter feed, Facebook page or linkedin profile?
Hi Klara, thanks for the kind words (for me, not for the brain dead people). The same articles are pushes out to my social media stream. The links are at the end of each blog. Take care!
I blog quite often and I really thank you for your information.
The article has truly peaked my interest. I will take
a note of your blog and keep checking for new details about once a
week. I subscribed to your RSS feed as well.
Thanks Tiffani!