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Marketing Your Business Beyond BNI

It’s about getting in front of and staying in front of your customer.

By Weston Lyon

Many business owners are wondering if they’ll survive another 12 months.

Your chances of survival are much higher if you’re in BNI. But aside from BNI, your focus should be on these three key areas: Lead Generation, Lead Conversion, and Customer Retention.

Where in your business can you improve?

Lead Generation – This is what you do to bring prospects (leads) into your business and onto your website. This is by far the weakest area for most businesses and the reason why only five percent of businesses today will be around five years from now.

Tactics to generate more leads:

Writing and distributing articles

Recording and distributing podcasts and videos

Writing and selling a book (and giving it away!)

Speaking to groups and associations

Advertising in print

Advertising online (Pay Per Click, Facebook, Adwords)

Joint venturing with similar businesses

Word of Mouth (which you already know how to do very well because of BNI)

And much more!

The biggest mistake business owners make in this area is not having enough lead generation sources running simultaneously! Listen, if you can generate a lead at break even (or better) then you should be doing it, and more of it!

So, do you have at least 5-10 lead generation techniques/tactics working for you?

Lead Conversion – This is how you turn your leads into customers (clients, patients, etc.). Once you have a steady stream of leads you don’t want to waste them. That would be silly and expensive!

Tactics to convert more leads into customers:

Sending email auto-responders

Sending a note in the mail

Giving free consultations

Giving free samples and coupons

Giving away your information (articles, videos, books)

Talking on the phone (what a concept!)

Having a face-to-face meeting (like a 1-to-1 – but for leads)

And much more!

The biggest mistake business owners make in this area is not holding the prospect’s hand long enough. You see, most leads you generate will not be ready to buy from you now. Some will; those are the ones to work with now. However, the ones that aren’t ready need to be nurtured. They need (and want) a relationship with you first.

So, do you have at least 4-7 lead conversion techniques/tactics working for you?

Customer Retention – This is what you do to keep your customers coming back to you over and over again for the rest of your life. This area is important because the profits your business can produce depends on retaining customers. The more customers that stay with you the longest, the more money you’ll make, the more referrals you’ll get, and the less stress you’ll have!

Tactics to retain more customers:

Having overwhelmingly awesome products and services (and support!)

Sending thank you notes

Sending an online newsletter (or better yet, a real hard-copy, in-the-mail newsletter)

Sending customer re-activation campaigns

Keeping in touch by phone

And much more!

The biggest mistake business owners make in this area is not constantly and consistently staying in front of their customer in every medium possible (phone, mail, email, text, etc.). Your customers will continue to buy from you and tell others about you if you just stay in front of them and give more value than any of your competition!

So, are you reaching out and touching your current (and past) customers at least 12 times per year?

FREE Gift for BNI Members

If you’re interested in learning how to become more successful in these three areas I’d like to extend a limited-time offer to you. For the first 1,000 BNI Members, I’ll give you a lifetime membership into my Profit Catapult Business School.

As a student you’ll receive a weekly lesson for the first year that will help you grow your business, while also having access (forever) to all our templates, scripts, and marketing materials (that you can use for yourself). You’ll also have access to over 150 hours of marketing wisdom (on video)!

Go to www.ProfitCatapultBusinessSchool.com/bni for your free lifetime membership.

Weston Lyon is the author of 14 books, the founder of Plug & Play Publishing, and one of the founders of Profit Catapult Business School.

Tags: customer retention, lead conversion, lead generation, networking, October 2011 Edition

5 Responses to “Marketing Your Business Beyond BNI”

Kacy Clark Says:
October 9th, 2011 at 11:23 pm
Thanks Dr Misner and BNI for my free lifetime access to the Profit Catapult Business School. I look forward to tons of new and useful information.
Llana Hills Says:
October 16th, 2011 at 6:33 am
A huge SHOUT OUT to Dr Misner and BNI for my FREE LIFETIME access to the Profit Catapult Business School. I am soooo excited to have the opportunity to receive and experience useful information.
Ronda Zaragoza Says:
October 20th, 2011 at 3:48 pm
Thanks DR Misner and BNI for the FREEE access to this LIFETIME business school so we can improve ourselves to increase our business knowledge and growth in sales!!!
Philip Turner Says:
December 22nd, 2011 at 12:36 am
This is great. Thank you!!
Herb Jones Says:
December 28th, 2011 at 8:28 am
Great piece and so glad you stressed lead CONVERSION. Also referenced as lead nurturing, this is so incredibly vital!
80% + of your leads won’t be sales ready and you don’t want to tie up your sales team with those leads. Nurture them by building trust, establishing credibility and authority and move them to the sales ready status.
We do this every day for our clients via the internet – it WORKS.

Herb Jones
BNI Member and Business Owner
Online Potential inc – your Gainesville Web Marketing Experts

5 Responses to “Marketing Your Business Beyond BNI”

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