How do you find offline clients ?

Disclaimer: Don't buy my WSO's.

Instead do a search in the forum, tons of information available. And I mean, tons of FREE information of methods and techniques people use with success to get new customers and how to keep them in the long run, multiplying profits.

I imagine so, but:

a) People doing it on and on for years usually don't give the whole game for free.
b) Even a detailed plan can be complicated if you don't know exactly how to approach offline customers.

My best clients are people that know me personally, from local
chamber of commerce meetings, from local Glazer-Kennedy
Insiders Circle meetings, and from meeting with local civic and
business organizations.

It actually took a little time for the people in some of these
groups to warm up to me, but now, I have as much business as
I really want.

I've also put on local workshops. Those always generate a
flood of business.

I can also point you to a few resources if you want to PM me.

Willie

We advertise in appropriate magazines and newspapers. Some work better than others, it's really trial and error. We talk to people we meet up with at car shows too. Hubby does a variation of what we sell as his day job so he sees potential customers all the time. We have flyers and biz cards in car related businesses.

If you don't have money to advertise then I'd say "Referrals referrals referrals!"

When I was into IT consulting, I'd offer anyone I knew 15% of the project cost, if they referred me to a client, and if I got the project. I would always get work. I guess now with all the social websites now, this should be even easier to do.

Also, once you build up a decent clientelle and everyone's happy with your work, you won't have any shortage of work!

Of course you already know that once you're established, referrals are by far the easiest new business to come by. But as to how to get those first few clients to get you started, it really depends exactly what services you are selling.

Web design can be really tough to break into because most established businesses already have a supplier - as it happens my company does do design but we don't major on it because revenue is limited and work required is high. However, SEO, Marketing, Social etc. is much easier to get into because many don't have this yet, and it is hugely more lucrative.

This is by no means a definitive approach, but it's what we did and it worked extremely well:

I started by creating something that demonstrates real value. eg. a local niche site sat at the top of page one with some traffic figures which were hard to ignore. I translated that into monetary value, so I had a powerful sales tool.

I used the local plumbing niche. Asking around I found that their average customer spend = £125 per job. We were soon able to demonstrate 20+ unique visitors per day on average. We made a (reasonable) assumption that it would translate into 5 calls / jobs a day for the business. Which meant @ £125 per job, they would increase their current business by £625 per day (around £12,500 per month).

It was really easy to target a couple of companies whose websites were languishing beyond page one of Google and phone them up along the lines of "agree to meet me for no more than 10 minutes and I will prove I can deliver you an extra 'several thousand' turnover per month. Don't take your time deciding though, because I'm talking to Company X and Company Y too and only one will get the deal!"

I had a whole series of meetings lined up in no time. I carefully prepared and printed out my facts and figures in a way that they could easily be understood in moments, especially the big income figure in 48pt bold type at the bottom!

The meetings were easy because the figures spoke for themselves. And I was able to choose the client based on not just the best financial return, but also on who I was happy to work with and who I thought would be the best advert and referral source for our services.

I'm not prepared to disclose the exact percentage we finally agreed on, but let's just say it's north of 30%.

Of course, that opened the flood gates to as much business as we can handle once word got out. I started the business from scratch in April 2009 and now have a list of 55 active clients.

Hope this helps a bit and I wish you the best of luck too!

This is a really good thread. Seems that there are a lot of ways to get in touch with prospect clients. Well in our company we do a lot of Advertising, Article Posting and Referrals too. By far those are the methods that we use. It is important that the clients have a clear understanding of the products or services that you offer. Hope we will be all successful in our own line of business.

Cheers to all..

The trick is to go back to old school ways of doing business. You have to go and get the personal touch. I would recommend starting with local chamber of commerce’s to get some knowledge of your local businesses. Do a bit of market research of the companies in your area and start going out and about making contacts either face to face contacts or via the telephone. Sending emails to companies will more often than not just get deleted straight away. You should home in on your communication skills and learn how to leave a lasting impression with people.

More Control is on the money with the above post but I would add that going to local businesses, buying something, a slice of pizza, etc. and starting talking is free and you would be surprised how you can start to network and close deals. Helps build your talking skills.

I've had enormous success with flyer marketing in my local Market. Just stop thinking about this in a 'chuck enough mud at the wall and some of it will stick'. Be strategic. Where are you likely to reach the people who you want to connect with? Is leaving flyers on car windshields going to do anything more than hack a lot of people off?

Also, get out there in your network. Google the phrase 'your town business breakfasts' and attend them. Get your face out there. Clients will end up coming to you.

Yeah, I thought I was being pretty specific too!