Small Business Coaching: Do This Daily to Get More Clients

By Allison Babb

If you are a small business owner, no doubt, you have too much to do. You thought that starting a home-based business would be great for flexibility, and you may have found yourself grappling for what to do to get more clients and up your revenue.

And if you are flying solo in running your business, staying focused on the right things is always a challenge; especially figuring out just how to sell your services consistently to bring in the revenue you want.

So, what really creates the income? What actions can you take daily to get more clients/customers? Here are my top 6 suggestions based on what I do daily.

Your Top 3 Daily "Must-Do"

On a little post-it note each day are my top 3 come-heck-or-high-water tasks. I refuse to go to bed at night if they’re not done. And they usually get done first thing in the morning - mornings are my most productive hours. Not just any old 3 things; they must be client-generating, profit producing tasks. Not things like “clean my desk” and “clean my inbox” and “file stuff” and "pay bills." It’s things like “call potential JV (joint venture) partner" and “send mailer out to coaches in Atlanta” etc. Three things directly tied to producing income.

At least ONE marketing action

This is like daily vitamins for your business growth. Every day there’s at least one marketing action that gets done. This is part of my top 3 but I wanted to point that out separately because it’s critically important. I also declared Mondays to be “Marketing Mondays.” No client calls, no appointments, no distractions, just steady hours of MARKETING.

I have a list of a couple dozen (or more) marketing actions that work for me like... do a google adwords campaign, book public speaking, call 5 people who have the same type of customer as I do (but are not competitors) and see if we can joint venture, do an online press release to drive traffic to my website, create new follow-up campaign, etc. That brings me to the next point…

Follow up... Fiercely & Consistently

Here’s a great challenge for you. Take every single business card you’ve received, qualify them to see if they truly are a good prospect, then create a once-per-month follow-up campaign that runs for 12 months uninterrupted. Systematize and automate the process. I use GreatSmallBusinessCards.com (offline) and GreatSmallBusinessCart.com (online) to automate follow-up. Follow up is part of my daily actions.

2 Money-making hours

You may not be able to do this daily, but as often as you can do it, it truly produces results. For 2 hours, or at least one hour daily, unplug the phone, shut off the emails, shut off the internet, close out all the things open on your computer, and focus on completing your top 3 revenue-producing tasks. This is how I get those top 3 things done. I commit 2 non-negotiable, no distractions, no-excuses hours to get it done.

Sometimes you have to relocate to do this, by the way. At times, if I stay in the same seat in my office, I stay unproductive. So I pick up my laptop and move to my kitchen or to Starbucks or to another room. Somehow, it helps shift my brain to and my commitment. I'm also easily distracted so I also use a timer. Hey, it works for me. (sidebar tip: I coach private clients on one day of the week - Wednesdays - it helps to batch your activity to improve productivity.)

Schedule Accountability & Support

There’s no way I could be where I am right now without having coaching sessions for ME scheduled in my calendar. My mentors help me avoid unnecessary mistakes and they show me what to do to move forward much more quickly. Hours set aside to receive coaching are always in my schedule. Can’t afford a coach? Buy one in a box (a program) or a book and, most importantly, schedule time to execute the actions you read or listen to.

But in all honesty, interactions with your own personal business coach is the best way to move forward at lightning speed in your business. Sometimes, you just have to make the decision to move past the free and cheap stuff and make a huge investment in your own success. I remember deciding to give up vacations for 2 years. I pointed all that cash at coaching to discover exactly what I needed to do to create the results I wanted. I still took vacations, but I stayed home. For me, it was an investment well worth making.

There’s always a master plan

To truly run your business like a business and not a “hobby” you must have a master plan that guides what you do daily. You don’t actually start with a daily list. It's the other way around. The daily list starts with a plan. A plan defines exactly what you want to sell and how much of it you need to sell to create the income you want.

Your plan also tells you exactly what marketing actions must be executed each month in order for you to get 10 clients or sell 20 seats in your program, or sell 8 copies of your products, etc. And those marketing actions are scheduled weekly and daily. And most importantly, measure what’s working and what’s not. Tweak your strategies, ditch strategies that aren’t working, try new marketing actions.

In short, plan first, set aside time daily to execute your top revenue-producing tasks, make marketing tasks non-negotiable daily/weekly, follow up with utmost consistency, get a mentor/coach to keep you on track, and measure your results so you know what needs to change.

If you enjoyed this article and you’re looking for help to create more revenue weekly, you can access specific low-cost marketing strategies so you know exactly what marketing actions to take daily - no more guesswork. To get answers to your questions and weekly doses of revenue-producing ideas, the club may just be the right fit. If you’re seeking more personal attention for rapid results, perhaps a complete business makeover may worthwhile. For more of a quick fix to blast through your top challenges an immediate 1-on-1 may be what’s most valuable. And lastly, if you’re a do-it-yourselfer, your choice may be a self-paced, step by step approach for how to get more clients.

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WANT TO USE THIS ARTICLE IN YOUR E-ZINE OR WEB SITE? You can, as long as you include this complete blurb with it: Allison Babb is an author, speaker and Small Business Coach to solo entrepreneurs. Allison publishes the "Small Business Success" weekly Ezine on how to create a steady stream of clients for your small business at: www.GreatSmallBusinessAdvice.com

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