At first look, this seems like such a crazy question coming from an association dedicated to professional women in business…..yet, the meaning and story behind the question was to think about how long it would take you to fill up your swimming pool if you only use one hose to fill it up versus more than one?! At our recent San Diego Leadership Luncheon we discussed this very issue and asked the question: “Why do so many woman business owners rely solely on one or two marketing activities to gain business?!”
The conversation centered around finding a variety of activities that you consistently focus on to “fill up your swimming pool.” In capturing business, here were my significant takeaways from our discussion:
1) Consistency – Whatever marketing activities you do select, make sure you consistently put forth the effort in a variety of activities. We heard from a few members who shared a bit of overwhelm in trying to build activity with ALL the social marketing activities, and our discussion gave a sense of relief to think that maybe one or two social marketing activities done consistently could drive better results.
2) You Can’t Measure What You Can’t Track – Whatever marketing activities you do to fill up your swimming pool, make sure you can track and measure your efforts and make adjustments as you go. No marketing effort is full proof, so tweaking and refining becomes the name of the game in getting better performance from your marketing efforts! Test it….try it….and then tweak it! Amen!
3) More Referrals – There was a bit of discussion that all of us would like more and frequent referrals as many of us have built business around others introducing us to opportunity and new business. When the discussion turned to what strategy many of us had to gain MORE referrals, there was a bit of confusion. No one seemed to have an ongoing strategy to gain referrals and build referral relationships. Make sure you build a consistent calendar and referral generating campaign through focused activities just like you would an advertising campaign. Reach out to those who have made attempts to refer, provide small tokens of appreciation to those who have referred and generate a follow up plan that focuses solely on generating more referrals.
There’s always great dialogue, conversation and shared experiences at our Leadership Luncheons! If you are a b2b woman who leads…..people, teams, projects or companies……why don’t you join us and experience the exchange of powerful ideas for advancing in business among peers who ‘get you’…….and who strive to find opportunities that support you professionally?! For more information on our Leadership Luncheons, check out our upcoming event calendar.
About Your Columnist
As the CEO and Co-Founder of Connected Women of Influence, Michelle Bergquist is a passionate advocate for women in business. At Connected Women of Influence, we believe that more women need to lead in business and everything we do is center-focused on designing platforms, programs, connections and collaborative opportunities for b2b women to prosper, succeed and lead the way in business today!
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