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How many hours have you spent attending networking events, giving elevator speeches, and following up with people, only to get few or no clients as a result? And how many clients have you referred to other business owners, only to get no payment or reciprocal referrals in return - or, even worse, to lose the client entirely? The old ways of networking just aren't as effective anymore. If you want to get more referrals, and get paid for the referrals you make when the rules of your industry allow, you need to use a different strategy. In... Read More

I was planning to write this on Tuesday, but I decided to share it a bit early, becauseI'm celebrating a new accomplishment: I just published a class on SkillShare, called Low-Cost Marketing for Small Businesses and Freelancers ... and for a limited time, you can get it for FREE. In this 68-minute class, you'll discover how small businesses and freelancers can attract leads while spending little or no money on advertising, and convert them into clients without feeling guilty, pushy or salesy. You can access this class, and thousands of... Read More

When you go to networking events, there are three essential components you need to have in place in order to get results. In a recent FacebookLive, I shared three reasons why people often don't get referrals from their networking efforts, and three strategies you can use to create consistent streams of referrals. I also answered a question about what to do if you get a negative review that could hinder your attempts to get clients and referrals. Click the player below to watch the replay. For those who prefer to read... Read More

If you use networking events as a way to meet potential clients and referral sources, you've probably found that you spend a lot of time talking to people who don't follow up, sending follow-up calls and emails that go unanswered, and giving out business cards that vanish intoother people's shoeboxes, never to be seen again. The unfortunate truth is, most people go to networking events to try to promote their own business, not to hire or send clients to other businesses. On top of that, even if they have the intention to send you clients,... Read More

The first month of the New Year just ended, and as we continue this new chapter in our businesses and lives, many of us will be reflecting on the strategies we use to grow our companies and attract clients. If your strategies include content marketing, particularly social media marketing, this is a perfect time to look at a trend I've noticed in the strategies two different industries use, and how they impact the level of engagement these industries get on Twitter. In particular, I'm talking about the #Business hashtag... Read More

By Josh Wardini. Today, more than ever before, there is a huge range of marketing techniques you can use to bring potential customers to your business. However, email marketing remains one of the most successful and cost-effective strategies, despite the fact that it has been around for so long. The trouble is, people are likely to receive a huge range of marketing emails every single day, the majority of which they will just ignore, so you have to do something special to ensure that your message stands out. Lucky for you, the team... Read More

When youre creating your product, program or service package, designing your brand, scripting your marketing materials, and speaking to potential clients and referral network members, one of the most important questions you need to answer is What problem do I solve for my clients? I recently met an entrepreneur who was having trouble answering that question in her business. Here are the strategies I recommended: 1. Create a list of all the physical, emotional, financial, and/or lifestyle problems that you've helped people solve, or... Read More

Today's blog post is written by Hisham Wyne. We could all use more coaching. - Richard Thaler The world is a noisy place. The chaos of everyday life, the cacophony of the city, and even the muted chatter around you can all contribute to a distracted mind. The modern world with all its developments and conveniences can also be a place where you cannot even hear yourself think. A Helping Hand There are some people who cannot function well in the midst of all the auditory and visual noise. They get sidetracked, lose focus,... Read More

When you're starting or growing a business, having the right tools, training, services and resources can make your job exponentially easier. To help you accomplish that goal faster, I've made a new page on my website with descriptions and links for the software and services I use to: 1. Get more referrals and get paid for the referrals I make, WITHOUT spending hours attending networking events 2. Attract clients through social media, without getting sucked into the black hole of my timeline feed 3. Create attractive lead capture... Read More

One day, an ad appeared in the sidebar of a site I was browsing, and I couldn't help but stare at it. Not out of curiosity or desire, but out of the same kind of incredulous fascination one might feel if they were walking in a desert that had only one tree, and saw that a car had somehow managed to crash into that tree. It was just that improbably bad. The headline in particular caught my eye: "The only site that gets you a girl". There are so many things wrong with this ad. Let's take a moment to break it down. Problem #1: For... Read More