Questions To Help Your Business Profit

When Preparing For A Consulting Meeting With An International Foundation, The Following Questions Were Asked

The following questions are modified for this post. But they are very similar to what I'm asking my consulting client.

Each of us needs to look at our business with fresh eyes (I guess that's why consultants like me get paid and why so many of us use Mastermind Groups to challenge our thinking and assumptions).

See how many of these can help YOUR business:

1. If someone is looking for you, what are they looking for? (Dig deep on this… if for photography, for instance, are they looking for pretty pictures OR are they looking to preserve memories. Are my marketing success clients looking for more leads OR are they looking to serve a specific market while producing 20% higher profits. See what I mean?)

2. How do you spread the word about what you do? What methods do you use to get the word out. Are you limiting yourself to ONE way of getting new business? Many of us feel that ONE is the worst number in business (one person inside your business knowing how to update your website, for example. Or one printer or one mail house – when they get busy or go out of business, THEN what do you do?)

3. How do you find “new” people? What do these “new” people primarily want from you? Are you attracting people to you OR are you hunting them down and trapping them like in the old wild wild west? You need information working for you 24/7 and if you don't have it, let's chat about how you can GET it.

4. What words do you use to describe what you do or what you are looking for? Are you narrowly focused with your "keywords" or are you attracting people who use "long-tail search terms"? (Examples: Marketing Consultant is a HUGE term with lots of results. But if you provide services to Work at Home Dads, that is more specific. OR are you looking for companies with sales under $100million? The more specific you can get with your terms, the more likely you will find people looking for YOU… not someone similar to you.

5. What are the top 3 questions you get asked by people you work with? If you have general questions asked of you a lot, it's time to create an eBook, an FAQ page on your website, or some other means to answer the general question. You don't need to spend all of your sales time informing people about what you do… they should know that BEFORE you chat. If they don't, you have a marketing problem (not a sales problem) and need to address it.

6. Has anyone indicated that they looked online for you? Has anyone you interact with been to your present website? Hey, as much time as I spend online, it's still clear that not EVERYONE searches online (though a great many people do!). So be sure you provide information where people are looking for you.

7. How comfortable are you with a computer, searching online? The more comfortable YOU are, the easier it will be to respond to people electronically. If you are NOT comfortable, you can purchase those services. But having someone else put up your website and then leaving it unattended will only lead to missed opportunities when it comes to your online marketing. You need to know enough to be able to direct others and to know that they are doing a great job for you.

8. What articles have you personally written to help attract more people to you? People venture online for INFORMATION. If you have blogs on your website, articles on Hubpages, articles for others to use on EzineArticles.com, you are making it easier for people to find YOU… instead of your continuing to hunt for THEM.

9. When you visit a face to face with a client or prospect, what do you talk about most often? Are you able to answer questions easily? Do you have information products or physical products that can answer the most-asked questions? If not, that's a great place to focus right now.
10. How often do you recontact them your present customers and clients? For what reason? What do you chat about? What additional services do they request? Once you can answer that and provide products (physical products or electronic ones) that can help MANY of your clients and customers… so always think about how you can multiply your efforts through others and use something you created to help additional people. (You DO notice that I prepared these questions for my consulting client and now I'm using them here to help you too, right?)

10.5. What do YOU feel could be MOST HELPFUL to you when considering getting MORE people to use your services? Focus on what you need to do to get MORE people to work with you. You'll be glad you did.

Best,

Charlie Seymour Jr
A Work At Home Dad, succeeding in this economy

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