Lately, I have been hearing from many coaches and consultants who are experiencing a slowdown in their businesses. They are reporting to me that it became much harder to get one-on-one clients and that even product sales have slowed down.

There are many reasons for this to be happening. It could be that many potential clients are taking summer vacations instead of working. It could be that customers are concerned about gas prices and the economy and are trying to save money by not getting professional help. Or it could be the regular business cycle – there are many different reasons for a business slowdown.

I recommend that you do not concentrate on finding out why there is a slowdown. Rather, you should concentrate on how you can bring more clients to your business. Here is what I recommend:

– Review Or Create A Marketing Plan For Your Business. Summer is the best time to review your marketing plan. Are you accomplishing what you have set out to accomplish? Are you filling your marketing funnel? Are you marketing every day? Are some of your marketing strategies bringing more customers to your business than others?

A marketing plan review will help you streamline your business and bring in more clients.

If you do not have a marketing plan now is the best time to create one. Your marketing plan will help you organize your marketing actions and spend less time on marketing while getting better results. Your marketing plan is your map to getting clients and creating a successful business.

When business is slow the businesses who survive are the ones who can do more and better marketing in less time.

– Do More Of What’s Working. As you review your marketing, you will see that certain marketing actions bring in more potential customers than others. There is no reason to do things that only bring in a few customers. You want to find actions that bring in the bulk of clients and repeat these actions over and over again. So when you find something that is working for you and your business, do more of the same.

For example, if networking with your target market online brings in great results, increase your networking time or find additional places to network. When you keep doing what’s working, you get more clients, it’s that simple.

– Bring In More Prospects. In slow business times it helps to bring in more prospects to your business. It could be that in the past you were able to convert 1 out of 20 prospects into a customer. But now it could be that you are able to convert only 1 out of 30 prospects into a customers.

If you need to get 10 clients for your business, in the past you only needed to bring in 200 business prospects. In order to get the same 10 clients now you will need to bring in 300 prospects. You will be able to do that by using marketing strategies that will help you attract more prospects to your business.

The best way I found to bring more prospects to my business is by getting more targeted traffic to my web site. I will be discussing how to bring more of your perfect clients and prospects to your web site during this Thursday’s teleseminar, How To Get More Clients To Your Web Site. You can register for it at https://www.marketingsalad.com/clients.html

Biana Babinsky

Since I have been teaching teleclasses for a long time, I get questions on a regular basis on how to get started teaching teleclasses. I love teaching teleclasses – it is very rewarding to teach them and they provide a lot of information and value for my students!

If you are starting out with teaching teleseminars/teleclasses/teleseries or webinars, here are three points that should help you create an effective (and popular!) class:

– Find a topic for your class. The best topics are topics that your target market is interested in learning more about.

– Pick one of the topics your target market wants to learn more about and create an interesting, effective class around this topic. Decide on how long your class will be, what the format of the class is going to be, how much material to include, etc.

– Market the class so that you can get participants for it! I usually recommend creating a marketing plan for promoting your teleseclasses/teleseminars. That way you will have a marketing template every time you want to teach your teleclasses in the future.

Your marketing plan should include different venues for reaching people in the target market and promoting your class to them.

My clients usually have the most trouble with the third action item, promoting the teleseminars/teleclasses and getting more participants for them. Here is how to promote your teleclass to get more participants:

– Publish a newsletter for your target market and use your newsletter to announce your teleclass to your subscribers.

– Some of your target customers visit your web site. Use your web site to announce your teleclass to your web site visitors.

– Are you using social networking web sites? Some of them allow you to post your teleseminars and events for other members to see. Announce your teleclass to these groups and watch your teleseminar attendance increase!

– Use article marketing, search engine optimization and other online marketing techniques to get more newsletter subscribers. Once you have more subscribers, you will have more people to promote your teleclasses to.

It is extremely important to have a clear marketing plan when marketing your teleseminars or any other classes. When you have a marketing plan you will be more successful and you will be able to get many more people to attend your classes.

Learn more about promoting your coaching business in this FREE Tutorial: How To Market Your Coaching Business

You may have noticed this phenomenon as well. Many years ago it happed to a client of mine. My client joined an online networking group to promote his expertise and get clients. This was a group frequented by his target market, so it was an ideal spot for him to network and promote his expertise and his business.

He jumped right in and was fairly active in this group from the very beginning. He posted messages every other day, answered questions and networked with many members. He really enjoyed talking about his subject matter and it showed through his messages as well. He became seen as an expert almost immediately and he became to reap rewards.

As a result of his actions, he started getting traffic from the group. Every week he would check his web site statistics and tell me that he was getting a nice amount of traffic. The traffic brought him sales as well – he did two consulting projects with people who met him through this group. He sold his e-books and got quite a few people from the group to attend his seminars.

But as more new clients and commitments came his way, he did not have time to participate as much. Some of the things he was doing had to be cut from his schedule, so he decided to cut back on his social networking. He started to participate less and less in the group.

After some time he reported that he was getting much less web site traffic from the group, now that he participated less. Once he stopped participating in the group, he stopped getting any traffic from it.

Things like that happen to business owners all the time. We get busier and stop participating in social networking groups, and stop getting the traffic from them as a result.

But there is a better way! You can continue to receive benefits from a social networking group, such as leads and sales, long after you stopped participating in those groups. To do that, you need to actively promote your newsletter while you are still a member of the group. That way, some of the members of the group will get on your list and you will be able to keep in touch with them long after you leave that group.

I still get sales from people who met me in groups that I haven’t been to in years. And one of my new one-on-one mentoring clients this year is someone I met in a group that was closed down four years ago. This person was on my list for many years, she has been to my teleseminars and now she is working with me one-on-one.

So if you want to keep in touch with people you meet through social networking for a long time, make sure you promote your newsletter! Promote it in your profile, link to it from your signature, post a link to it from your “About” page, etc. The more visible you make your newsletter, the more people will get on your list, and the more people you will be able to keep in touch with even if you stop using some social networking groups.

For more help with getting clients from social networking, join me for the How To Create Social Networking Plan That Gets You Clients Teleseminar at https://www.marketingsalad.com/social-networking.html

Biana Babinsky

About Biana: Biana Babinsky is the online business expert and author who teaches coaches, consultants and other business owners how to use social networking to get clients. Join her for the How To Create Social Networking Plan That Gets You Clients Teleseminar to discover how to use social networking to get newsletter subscribers and clients for your business. You can learn more and register at https://www.marketingsalad.com/social-networking.html

Yes, you read correctly. According to the article, Google to Connect Friends Across the Web, Google is working on a service that will let any web site become a social networking site. All you will have to do is embed some code into your web site, and your web site visitors will be able to connect and interact with each other.

Imagine having your web site visitors meet each other, interact, chat. What do you think?

Biana Babinsky

About Biana: Biana Babinsky is the online business coach who teaches her clients how to get more web site traffic and clients online. Join her online business mentoring program to discover how to use the Internet to get over 98% of your clients! Join now at https://www.MarketingSalad.com

Just read an article, MySpace, Facebook: Big not always better about how Internet users like to use smaller, more targeted social networking web sites and groups.

Personally I like both types of groups. I am a member of small networking groups where membership is very targeted. For example, we have a very targeted networking group at MarketingSalad.com, my online business mentoring web site. In addition to learning about online marketing, members of MarketingSalad.com also network with each other and do business with each other on a regular basis. This group is very targeted – members are are coaches, consultants, virtual assistants and other online business owners who are serious about building profitable online businesses.

But I also like much larger networking web sites, such as Facebook, LinkedIn, etc. The key to using those really large sites is to still find smaller groups of people you want to socialize with. For example, if you like skiing, search for skiing groups. If you want to become known to your target market, search for groups/places where your target market is and start the conversation going.

It does not matter how big or small a group is, as long as you can create a strategy to increase your visibility and reach your market effectively.

Biana Babinsky

Recently I have been exploring Facebook, the online social networking site, in more depth. I have been a member for a while, but I haven’t used my account that much. By the way, if you are a member, you can search for me and send me an invitation to connect.

I have been using Instant Messaging a very long time. I have been using it for connecting and networking and I have also been using it extensively with my clients.

Now Facebook is putting the two together – you can now use a new instant messaging feature directly on Facebook to chat with your friends.

Check out more on this at Facebook: Facebook Chat: Now We’re Talking and on CNN at Facebook unveils instant message feature

Biana Babinsky

Online social networking is very hot right now, so join us for MarketingSalad.com Social Networking event on April 1st and 2nd. During this event you will be able to network with your potential customers and other solopreneurs and learn how to use social networking to promote your business.

Many participants reported creating business connections and getting clients during our past events, and this one is no exception! I am committed to helping 100 business owners to use social networking to market their business!

You can learn more and register for the social networking event at https://www.marketingsalad.com/networking.html

Biana Babinsky

There are many social networking web sites online. I am sure you have heard of LinkedIn, Ryze, Facebook, MySpace and many other social networking sites.

I am a member of a few of them, and we also do a lot of networking at my online business mentoring web site, https://www.MarketingSalad.com. I also run my own social networking events for business owners.

Lately I have been getting lots of questions about social media and online networking from coaches, consultants and other solopreneurs. It seems that social networking is becoming more popular and more business owners want to take advantage of social networking to get more clients for their businesses.

You have to remember that just like regular networking, using social media does take time. You are looking for results for your business and it takes time to get those results.

Some of the things i do when I use social media are: I run groups and networking events for people I meet on social networking sites, I keep in touch and network, I write and optimize my blog, etc.

Two main things to remember if you want to get results from social media are:

– Correctly define your goals for social networking. You have to know know exactly what you want to happen from your involvement in social media and how to follow up and build on that involvement.

– You need to find ways (and time!) to do social media marketing on a regular basis.

More tips on using social media:

– Use Web 2.0 And Online Networking To Promote A Coaching Business

– How To Get Results From Online Networking

– Are You Wasting Time Or Networking?

Biana Babinsky