How to Build Your List

I well remember when I had not long been working as a coach, the excitement of the first time I was asked to make a presentation at my local women’s business network meeting.  Ok, perhaps I wasn’t asked.  Perhaps I begged, cajoled and offered bribes until they agreed I could be the speaker at our next meeting.

On my next session with my coach, Nicola Cairncross, when I shared my good news, she said, "Fantastic.  Now what’s your objective?"

"Well, I want to make a great presentation to the group".

"Yes, I know, but what’s your real objective?" she asked.

"Great question" I said, thinking what a daft question, "er, I want to get some clients".

"So you’re hoping you’ll give your talk and there’ll be a queue of people at the end clamouring for your services?"

Well, it was more ‘expectation’ than ‘hope’ actually but clearly Cairncross knew something I didn’t so I sat back and let her de-mystify a bit more of this marketing mullarkey for me.

What Nicola wanted to get across to me was that I should look at the talk as an opportunity to build my list.

Talking to groups, is of course, a great way – potentially – to get in front of our ideal clients.  I say potentially because if you’re not confident speaking in public or if you’re talking to the wrong group or if your talk doesn’t address the needs of that group then you can waste a lot of time trying to market yourself in this way.

But let’s assume that you know this is a group of people who are just the clients you believe you can help and you’ve prepared a great presentation based on a topic that’s close to their hearts, rather than just close to yours.  You’ve done your homework, you’ve rehearsed your talk in front of the dog and now here you are, at the front of the room and it all seems to be going very well.

If you’ve educated and entertained your audience and demonstrated you can help them, you may certainly get some interest at the end of your talk from people who want your brochure or your card and who say they’ll probably call you soon.  One or two you’ve particularly connected with might want to tell you all about themselves and bag some free on-the-spot coaching from you.  Others will be queuing up to try and sell you their products or services.

But you will be quite lucky if you walk away from the event with more than one or two free consultations in your diary.

However, there’s a reason for this and that’s that our clients don’t buy from us until they know, like and trust us (or feel they do) so all those ideal clients you’ve just spent an hour or two talking to, are just not yet ready to invest their hard-earned cash in you as their solution-provider.

The answer to your dilemma then is to get their permission for you to stay in touch in the future and the best way to do this is by getting their name and their email address. 

You might feel a handful of email addresses isn’t much to show for your night’s work, and they certainly won’t pay that overdue phone bill, but they are as valuable as gold dust because they allow you to start growing your list of contacts, building relationships that will enable you in future to promote your services and products to them – over and over again.  And all from the comfort of your laptop.

Not everyone will want to hand over their contact details and the best way to encourage them is by offering them something for free, an article you’ve written or your top tips etc.  Although I didn’t yet write a newsletter at the time of that first talk I knew that was my next step so I sent a form around the room asking them to tick any of my three articles they’d like me to send them (which incidentally, I hadn’t yet written) and giving me permission to send them the first issue of my forthcoming newsletter.

I got around 25 – 30 sign-ups who over a period of time either bought my e-course, or became a client or even simply forwarded my newsletter to someone else.  All opportunities I would have missed if I had been focussed only on bagging myself a new client straightaway.

So when you’re asked to speak at an event or doing your 1 minute introductions at the start of a network meeting, or even chatting informally, keep in mind that your objective might simply be to find a way you can get permission from them to keep in touch with them.

This will create that know, like and trust factor that will help your business grow.