How to Use Events to Grow Your Business

How to Use Events to Grow Your Small Business

Most coaches, consultants and freelancers I meet at Laptop Lounge are amazing at what they do and within just a few minutes of speaking with them you can sense their passion, drive and commitment to helping their clientele. The challenge for them and many other small business owners is being able to reach enough people who can witness that passion first hand. It’s that passion and enthusiasm that sells. 

Marketing your coaching, consulting, or freelance practice is all about capturing and packaging that enthusiasm to engage a broader audience. The fact is: most small business owners still sell best face-to face. That’s why events, seminars, and workshops are an excellent marketing tool.

Events can be a highly effective tool to generate leads.  Here are a few of the benefits of using events as a sales and marketing tool:

 

1. Shortening the sales cycle. Just by showing up to your event attendees have expressed interest in your message which makes them prequalified leads. Think of your event as your first sales call, your prospects have already heard your message, experienced your passion and enthusiasm, and (hopefully) you’ve convinced them they have a specific need that you can fill. This moves prospects into your sales funnel and allows you to close deals faster.

2. Reaching more prospects all at once. You could spend hours upon hours cold calling or personally visiting hundreds of prospects – OR you could invite them all to an event and save valuable time and resources.

3. Positioning yourself as an expert in your industry. When you share your experience, insights, success stories, and information you deliver value. Doing this consistently will quickly build your reputation as someone who knows their stuff and soon you will be sought after as the expert in your industry.

4. Creating buzz for your products and services. An event should never be a prolonged sales pitch. Instead use it as a way to showcase your products and services through stories, case studies, and examples. By getting the room excited about the possibilities and showing them that you understand and can solve their problems you’ll generate buzz that will travel beyond the walls of that room.

5. Creating joint marketing opportunities with your key partners. Events are great way to develop partnerships and offer your audience a broader service. By partnering with people and companies who offer complimentary services you can not only leverage their expertise and offerings- but gain access to their audience as well.