Took a page out of my own playbook the other night.
Guiding principles for marketing, IMHO, are:
- Turn your customers into your best marketers.
- Bring like-minded people together.
Sunday night, I hosted "Scotch and Taxes" where I played two roles. One, as marketing advisor to my finanical planner. Two, as "raving fan" of his services.
As a marketer, I told Josh (my advisor) that he needed to get his best customers to advocate for him.
As a loyal customer, I offered myself up.
I invited about 10 friends to join me at my house, drink some Scotch (Josh provided!) and talk about financial issues that concerned all of us (retirement, private school education, etc.) 3 showed up (30% conversion...not too shabby :-)
Josh didn't have a "deck," folders to hand out, nor did he put business cards on the table.
He just had a conversation. Listened, asked questions, and shared his knowledge.
Contrast that to most presentations.
When most companies get up in front of people, what is the first thing they talk about?
Themselves. Who We Are. How We Work. WE, We, We, We!!!
Who cares?!!
So, what do you do?
Start off delivering value. Be informative. Engaging. Listen to people.
Then, at the end, when they ask:
"So, how long have you been doing this?"
"How do you work with clients?"
That's when you know you have interest in moving forward.