Marketing Your Home Business
The Marketing Cycle: A Typical Story
John is a friend of your favorite aunt. He heard about your business, and is considering hiring you. It is late January. You and John talk on the phone. You both like what you hear - he’s your ideal client, and to him, you are his ideal service provider. So, you arrange to meet in early February. There you are in February, snow swirling outside your favorite coffee shop, discussing possible projects and getting to know John a bit better. After an hour or so, the two of you come to the next step. John would like to see what you discussed in a formal quote, with a contract.
You race home from the meeting and prepare the quote and contract. John receives it, thanks you, and says he’ll review it - but he’s going on vacation, so it will probably be early March. He calls you on March 3 and says all is going well. However,
he’d like to expand the use of your services. Would it be possible to rework the quote and present it to his business partners as well? The two of you agree on a date when you will go to his company and make a presentation. It is now late March. Although you are nervous, the presentation goes extremely well. Everyone checks their calendars at the end of the meeting.
Tentatively, you could start on the project in early April. You’ll receive the signed contract, and a deposit, in the mail shortly. Have you noticed that more than two months went by from initial contact to signed contract? Depending on the size of the project, the time could be more or less. The client, too, might be very busy, and simply not as attentive as John was in the previous example. From the time you make first contact until you close, the business could be months, if not a year or more.
This is why marketing your home based business opportunity or program every day, day in and day out, is important. You need to work on your marketing today in order to have business coming in next month, next season, and next year. Plus, John might not have turned into a client. Something might have gone wrong, or you or John might have realized that there wasn’t a good fit. That can happen, and it might happen after you have prepared a quote, made a presentation, and performed other marketing work.
Tags: home based business, home business, home business marketing, work at home