How do I get to our customer’s now then?

As a sole trader, my skill set is delivering my work.  As I’ve posted before, I don’t have a team to engage with, I don’t have a more senior person to think differently with, I don’t have an IT function, HR Manager, Comms Manager or Marketing Manager.  I have to rely on entirely on myself and to be honest, my well-meaning husband providing a little je ne sais quoi support on the side.

I’ve been sourcing my customers by-&-large through just a small handful of routes to market; word of mouth and a few web-sites, one of which probably sourced the lion’s share of my work.  Just recently, the business behind my “lion’s share” collapsed without warning and without support and my major client source has, like much of Europe it seems, dried up.  This has had a huge impact on my business and so over the past couple of months I’ve had to look at how to market my business.

The Norfolk Chambers of Commerce has been a great resource.  I’ve signed up to their 08/October B2B event.  I have a small marketplace stand which, for the size of my business, was a really cost-effective way of doing something differently that I’ve not done before.  I’m looking forward to meeting other businesses, engaging with people and seeing how we can support each others’ needs.  I’ve also signed-up to their Social event at Barnham Broom hotel on 10/September at 1600.  Again, this is something I’ve not done before and there’s an amount of trepidation networking at an event which is unfamiliar to me.

I’ve been posting & sharing on Linked-in too.  Through the Norfolk Chambers of Commerce I’ve created some FREE OF CHARGE taster sessions.  This is an excellent wany of inviting people to try before you buy in a safe space.  The reaction I’ve had to this has been really interesting and has included people working in French-Canadian companies through to people who enjoy holidays in France but don’t have anywhere near enough language capability to converse with locals and therefore properly immerse themselves in the culture.  Some of my customers though are intermediate and even advanced speakers who look to hone their skills or quite simply just enjoy conversing in the language.  Honesty speaking though, I’ve found that LinkedIn activity also brings its fair share of ‘spam’ contacts that aren’t looking to engage so I need to be mindful and sift the wheat from the chaff.

I’ve also been working with a provider to re-design my web page (come & see me here > www.frencheasesolutions.com).  I’m a lot happier with the aesthetics and the story it’s telling.    To compliment my web presence, I’ve also done a lot of work with my Google search profile.  Not only have I made changes to my profile, but I’ve also proactively asked my clients to give me ratings on my Google profile and the combination of these has really helped elevate where I am in a search result.

On reflection, my learning point is to ‘make hay whilst the sun shines’ which feels quite apt.  I’d become heavily reliant on one significant source and with that drying up it exposed risk to my business.  A difficult time has led me to consider different marketing strategies, push myself out of my comfort zones and adopt approaches I wouldn’t have considered if the situation hadn’t arose.