It’s the biggest concern for most professionals. That awful feeling in the pit of their stomach: where is my next client coming from?
Perhaps the very best way for professionals to get more clients for their business is to use presentations and seminars.
Why are presentations and seminars so effective at attracting clients?
When clients hire a professional, it’s usually because they need their expertise. Yes, they’re looking for an end result: a problem solved or an opportunity delivered. But the reason they can’t solve the problem or deliver the opportunity themselves is usually because they don’t have the expertise the professional has.
Now everyone claims they have the expertise clients are looking for. The challenge is how to prove it. testimonials and references are good – but everyone has those.
The best approach is to demonstrate your expertise. And speaking and running seminars on relevant topics is one of the best ways to do that. Clients get to experience first-hand that you know what you’re talking about. And they also get a sense of what you would be like to work with in person.
Public speaking and running seminars is not for everyone. Some professionals who are great face to face communicators crumble when on stage. And organizing the logistics for events is a time consuming task. Most crucially, it is often a huge challenge to get attendance even at free events. The topic needs to be highly relevant to a significant number of potential clients – and you need to be able to reach them to alert them to the event and sell them on attendance.
It’s often a useful tactic to be able to “piggyback” on existing events with regular attendance from your target clients. Professional associations are often on the lookout for good guest speakers, and many networking events have speaker and seminar slots available. This can be a very effective route if you don’t already have a strong list of potential attendees yourself.
But before selecting presentations and seminars as one of your primary marketing approaches – make sure you’re actually good at it. There’s nothing worse for potential clients than having to sit through a deathly dull presentation. Even if the presenter is a true expert – if they can’t present well, they’ll do themselves no favours.
For more free resources on how to Get More Clients for your business visit Ian Brodie’s blog and learn more Business Development Strategies for professional services.
Tags: Advertising, Communications, consulting, Management, Marketing, sales